Advisor: Kathleen A. DuVal, Associate Professor of History and Director of Undergraduate Studies,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, National Humanities Center Fellow.

Why did many European attempts to establish colonies in the New World fail?

Understanding

Many European attempts to colonize the New World failed not only because of physical hardships and deprivation but also because of cultural misunderstandings on the part of both the colonizers and the native inhabitants.

Map of the Western Hemisphere, 1562

Teacher’s Note

To begin, it is important to note that Ajacán was not intended to be a substantial settlement like the failed British colony of Roanoke or the successful colony of Jamestown. Once established on shore, Father de Segura dispatched his ship and crew to Cuba with the letter we are considering here. A small band of nine newcomers plus a tribal member, all unarmed, would hardly have threatened the Powhatan. Why, then, did the Indians, apparently friendly at first, kill the Spanish just a few months after they arrived?

When we attempt to answer that question through this text, we immediately confront an interpretative thicket. First, we have no direct account of how the Powhatan responded to the Spanish because the Indians left no written records. Second, what we do know has been shaped by two reporters: first by de Velasco, who presumably translated for the priests and who may have shaded the Indians’ words one way or another for his own reasons, and second by the Jesuits, who were trying to persuade the governor of Cuba to supply their mission. What might de Velasco have been trying to achieve upon being among his people again, and how might his goals have shaped the way he presented their words to the missionaries? What were the Jesuits trying to achieve, and how might their goals have shaped the way they described their experience to Governor de Hinistrosa?

We offer three passages for discussion.

The first passage is a series of two short excerpts in which the priests describe how the Powhatan reacted to their arrival and to the return of de Velasco, whom they had not seen in nine years. It seems that at first the Powhatan welcomed both their brother and the Jesuits.

The second passage includes two excerpts that introduce questions of food, the Indians’ expectations of the visitors, and the potential for conflict. The Jesuits hoped that they could convert the Powhatan and establish a foothold in the region that might eventually lead to the conversion of what they thought was China. These excerpts reveal the importance of food in drawing Indians to visit the mission.

The third passage foreshadows the trouble that may be brewing and can be used to raise directly the question of what happened between the Jesuits and their Powhatan hosts. Someone on the Spanish ship gave some Powhatan “trinkets” in exchange for corn, so then, according to the priests, the Indians began to think they should always get paid for their corn. What conflicts could such trade cause?

The Jesuit’s letter only sketches Ajacán, but it provides enough evidence to fuel theories on why the Powhatan destroyed the mission. Students may develop their own narratives, while considering these speculations:

• Maybe the Powhatan were teaching the Spanish their reciprocal rules of trading. The Powhatan gave the Spanish corn and expected in return seeds that the next Spanish ship was bringing (perhaps the priests had described seeds for other kinds of plants that the Powhatan were interested in). The Spanish seemed to be operating under the kind of reciprocity the Indians expected, but then, through a “bit of blundering” by a Spanish crewman, the Indians found out that the Spanish had “trinkets,” probably glass and other interesting items that were not mere trinkets at all to the Powhatan. So the Powhatan began expecting, by the rules of reciprocity, to get those things rather than to wait for the promised new ships. Perhaps the Powhatan felt insulted over what they took to be deception, which was completely against their rules of reciprocity.
• Maybe the Powhatan killed the missionaries to lessen the number of mouths they had to feed in a time of severe scarcity.
• Maybe Father de Quiros had it all wrong, and the conflict was not about food but about something else. Maybe de Velasco told his fellow Powhatan that the Jesuits were the advance troops of a militaristic society, which is precisely what Spain was.
• Maybe the Powhatan intended to kill the missionaries right from the start and simply waited for an opportune moment.
• Maybe the priests are covering up something they did that sparked violence, such as stealing corn.

Remember it is acceptable to make educated guesses based on the little evidence we have. If we want to know anything about Indians before the nineteenth century (and we do!), we have to deal with scanty sources as best we can. At any rate, with this text you can help students see that mutual misperceptions and misunderstandings of things like language, expectations, and cultural practices could doom a colony just as effectively as famine could.

Background

In 1570 Spanish Jesuits Juan Baptista de Segura and Luis de Quirós along with seven other missionaries, both clergymen and lay people, founded Ajacán on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, intending to convert the local Indians to Catholicism. Because Father de Sugura had seen how soldiers undermined the work of missionaries in Florida, he forbade them to accompany his small band. The Indians spoke an Algonquian language and were ancestors of the Powhatan, whom the English founders of Jamestown met in 1607. We do not know what they called themselves in 1570, and their seventeenth-century name may have come from the name of their leader at that time. At the risk of anachronism, the discussion questions call them Powhatan for continuity with the history of Jamestown.

A Spanish slaving ship had captured a young man from this tribe in 1561. In his nine years away from home, he was baptized into the Catholic faith, christened with the new name Luis de Velasco (we do not know what he called himself), and traveled to Spain, where he met the king. While in Spain, de Velasco said that he wanted to go home and convert his people to Christianity. He led the Jesuits to the Chesapeake, where they founded Ajacán. About five months later de Velasco and the Powhatan slaughtered eight of the missionaries.

To help sort out the voices in the letter, note that the first five paragraphs were written by Father de Quiros. Paragraphs six and seven were written by Father de Segura, and the final three paragraphs are again the work of Father de Quiros.

One of the points of this lesson is to think like ethnohistorians: to try to discern the motives and actions of people who did not leave written records. Be sure to consider not just the priests’ point of view but that of the Powhatan as well.

Text Analysis

Excerpts from the letter of two priests in the Spanish colony of Ajacán to the
governor of Cuba, 1570

Follow-up assignment

To explore cultural misunderstandings of the sort that could doom a colony, make a list of the misperceptions expressed by Dr. Edward Dodding in the autopsy report he prepared on an Inuit man British explorer Martin Frobisher brought to England after one of his voyages to find the Northwest Passage. (Click here for note.) Have students then evaluate how Dodding’s attitudes might have shaped his dealings with native peoples if he ever were to become a colonist. Address the following questions:

• How would you characterize Dodding’s attitude toward the Inuit?
• What assumptions does he make about the Inuit in general and the man in particular?
• How might a colony full of Europeans who shared Dodding’s attitudes and beliefs have related to the natives surrounding their settlement?

VOCABULARY pop-ups

• famished: extremely hungry, starving
• imperative: absolutely necessary
• reluctant: hesitant and unwilling

Image: Diego Gutiérrez, Americae sive qvartae orbis partis nova et exactissima descriptio . . . , map of the western hemisphere, 1562, detail with Bahia de Santa Maria (Chesapeake Bay). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography & Map Division, G3290 1562 .G7 Vault Oversize.

The post Failed European Colonies in the New World appeared first on America in Class.

Advisor: Michael P. Gaudio, Associate Professor of Art History
, University of Minnesota.

How did Europeans interpret the New World through their earliest visual depictions?

Understanding

John White’s depictions of Virginia brought a striking naturalism to the visual representation of America even as they were shaped by European cultural habits and preconceptions.

John White, Indian in Body Paint,watercolor, ca. 1585

[For more resources with early New World imagery, see Illustrating the New World, Part One and Part Two, in American Beginnings: The European Presence in North America, 1492-1690 from the National Humanities Center.]

Teacher’s Note

Each of the three image pairs is a visual comparison that asks you to consider one of John White’s watercolors of Carolina Algonquians in relation to another sixteenth-century depiction of New World peoples. The comparisons offer an opportunity to consider the general problem of how artists attempted to make the cultures of New World peoples intelligible to their European audiences. They are also an occasion to consider what is unique about White’s depictions.

When teaching the comparisons, evoke for your students the situation of being in a place that the Virginia expedition’s members were encountering for the first time and in which they confronted the significant challenge of communicating with the native inhabitants. That challenge was exacerbated by a variety of factors including a lack of familiarity with the climate and topography, dependence on the Algonquians for food, and the terrible impact of European germs (smallpox) on native populations. Within this fragile and often tense situation, White’s task was to communicate a visual understanding of the Algonquians in a way that might promote interest and investment in the Virginia colony. To what extent do the pictures convey such understanding, and to what extent do they suggest the limits of European understanding?

It is important to recognize that artists, no less than writers, must speak in a language that both they and their audience are familiar with. The first comparison focuses on the different visual languages employed by White and by an artist who illustrated a 1603 edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of his voyage to Guiana (a voyage that took place in 1595, several years after the failure of the Virginia colony). Explore the contrast between White’s naturalistic depiction of an Algonquian warrior in body paint and a sensationalist image that shows the inhabitants of Guiana as “Blemmyes,” or people with heads in their chests that belonged to the tradition of the “monstrous races” derived from Herodotus and Pliny. But also consider the ways in which White was responding to the expectations of his European audience.

The second comparison involves two representations of encounter between Europeans and natives. One of the images, designed by the French artist Jacques Le Moyne who had traveled to Florida in 1564 as part of an effort to establish a French Protestant colony, shows an encounter between French soldiers and Timucuan Indians and invites you to consider likeness and difference between the two cultures. In his watercolor of an Algonquian mother and child, White confronts encounter more obliquely, by placing an English doll in the hand of the young girl.

The final comparison focuses on one of Theodor de Bry’s re-interpretations of a John White watercolor. De Bry’s engraving is based on White’s depiction of an Algonquian shaman, or medicine man, which White entitled “The Flyer.” De Bry re-names the shaman as “The Conjuror” and includes a caption that portrays him as a disreputable and untrustworthy magician, of a kind that would have been familiar to European audiences (see below, pair #3). This comparison is an occasion to consider how text and captions can transform the way an audience interprets an image.

Background

On April 9, 1585, a military expedition set sail from Plymouth with the goal of fortifying and surveying the New World territory Sir Walter Raleigh had named “Virginia” after Queen Elizabeth. One member of this expedition, John White, who later became governor of the failed Roanoke colony, had the task of recording Virginia in pictures. During the summer of 1585 White produced a remarkable collection of watercolors, now housed in the British Museum, that describes the native peoples, natural history, and geography of the region. Thanks to Theodor de Bry’s engravings of these watercolors, published in 1590, White’s pictures would go on to have a profound impact upon how Europeans imagined nature and society in North America.

Like any artist traveling to the New World in the sixteenth century, John White faced the challenge of depicting a world unknown to Europeans. While the accounts of Greek and Roman authors like Herodotus and Pliny had traditionally provided models for representing the peoples living at the farthest reaches of Africa and Asia, these writers made no mention of America. How could artists make the New World comprehensible in the Old? In 1620 the English philosopher Francis Bacon, frustrated with the dependence of his contemporaries on ancient authors, called upon them to build new knowledge through the direct evidence of the eyes: “all depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature and so receiving their images simply as they are.” In the spirit of Bacon, White’s watercolors of Virginia keep our eyes “steadily fixed upon the facts.” At the same time they offer ample occasion to reflect on the visual strategies through which an artist familiarized the New World for his European audience.

Image Analysis

Pair #1

John White, Indian in Body Paint (The manner of their attire . . .), watercolor, ca. 1585. ©The Trustees of the British Museum.

Depiction of Blemmyes,engraving in a 1603 German edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Discovery of Guiana, 1595. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

Pair #2

John White, Indian Woman and Young Girl (The cheife Herowans wyfe . . .), watercolor, ca. 1585. ©The Trustees of the British Museum.

Theodor de Bry, Their Solemn Ritual in Consecrating a Deerskin to the Sun, engraving after watercolor by Jacques Le Moyne, 1591. Courtesy of the University of South Florida.

Pair #3

John White, “The Flyer,” c. 1585. ©The Trustees of the British Museum.

Workshop of Theodor de Bry, “The Conjurer,” 1590. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

Follow-Up Assignment

While de Bry’s engravings achieved immediate and widespread fame in Europe in the 1590s and early 1600s, John White’s original paintings were not published until the twentieth century. And neither were two image collections of Canada and the Caribbean that, like White’s drawings, were created by Europeans in the New World and were held in private collections for centuries. Read more background on these works before you begin studying the images.

• CAROLINA, 1580s. Paintings of the Indians, plants, and animals of present-day coastal North Carolina, created by John White during the attempt to settle an English colony on the Atlantic coast. Focus on the depictions of the Algonquian Indians.
• CARIBBEAN, 1580s. Paintings of the Indians, plants, and animals of the West Indies, perhaps drawn by two or more crewmen sailing with Sir Francis Drake. Focus on the depictions of the Indians on pp. 7-10, 13-14.
• CANADA, 1670s. Drawings of the Indians, plants, and animals of French Canada by a French Catholic priest, Louis Nicolas. Focus on the depictions of the Indians, pp. 2-9.

Compare and contrast the three collections of eyewitness depictions of the New World. How do they differ from the engravings created by Theodor de Bry, who had never visited the New World and who based his depictions on others’ drawings. Use the questions below and the graphic organizer to organize your ideas. Present your responses and conclusions in an illustrated essay, PowerPoint presentation, narrated video, classroom exhibit, etc.

1. What are your first reactions to the drawings? How do they surprise, intrigue, or puzzle you? Do you like them? Why or why not?

2. What identifies the images as eyewitness depictions of the New World?

3. How do they differ from the engravings by Theodor de Bry and others who adapted the eyewitness images for publication in Europe?

4. What identifies the images as Europeans’ depictions of the New World?

5. What did the artists find important to draw and describe? Why do you think they found these things important? Do you think they planned to publish their collections? Why or why not?

6. If these eyewitness collections had been published in the 1500s and 1600s, how might they have influenced European notions of the New World and its inhabitants?

• De Bry’s engravings of the Algonquian Indians, Roanoke region, 1590, from John White’s watercolors
• De Bry’s engravings of the Timucua Indians, Florida, 1591, from the watercolors of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
• John White’s watercolors of an Inuit family, northern Canada, 1577
• Spanish depictions of the Aztec, 1500s: follow the links to paintings in Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

*Because there is no text for this lesson, vocabulary was pulled from the background note and the questions.

• fortifying: strengthening
• surveying: examining
• watercolor: a painting method using a transparent paint
• engraving: a print made from an engraved plate
• comprehensible: able to understand
• ample: more than enough
• solemn: serious and formal
• interpretation: an explanation

Images:
– John White watercolors, ca. 1585. The Trustees of the British Museum. Reproduced by permission.
    -Indian in Body Paint (The manner of their attire . . . ). Image 00025875001.
    -Indian Woman and Young Girl (The cheife Herowans wyfe . . .). Image 00025876001.
    -Indian Conjurer (The flyer). Image 00025879001.

– Images from Archive of Early American Images, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. Reproduced by permission.
    -G. van Veen (de Bry workshop), The Conjurer, engraving after John White, in Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of     Virginia, 1590. Call No. J590 B915v GV-E.I [F] / 2-SIZE.
    -Depiction of Blemmys [Blemmyae], engraving in a 1603 German edition of Sir Walter Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana, 1595. CallNo. T7d V3b.

– Theodor de Bry, Their Solemn Ritual in Consecrating a Deerskin to the Sun, engraving after watercolor by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, in Le Moyne, Brief Narration of Those Things Which Befell the French in the Province of Florida in America, 1591. Courtesy of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, University of South Florida.

The post Early Visual Representations of the New World appeared first on America in Class.

Copyright National Humanities Center, 2015

In what ways did the arrival of Europeans to America bring about unforeseen and unintended consequences for the people and environments of both the New World and the Old?

Understanding

The Columbian Exchange — the interchange of plants, animals, disease, and technology sparked by Columbus’s voyages to the New World — marked a critical point in history. It allowed ecologies and cultures that had previously been separated by oceans to mix in new and unpredictable ways. It was an interconnected web of events with immediate and extended consequences that could neither be predicted nor controlled.

Teacher’s Note

In this lesson students will explore a description of the Columbian Exchange written by Charles C. Mann as part of the introduction to his book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. In three excerpts students will examine elements of the Exchange — an overview, a specific biological example of unintended consequences, and finally an example of unintended human costs of the Columbian Exchange. Each excerpt is accompanied by close reading questions for students to complete. The text analysis is accompanied by three interactive exercises to aid in student understanding. The first interactive allows students to explore vocabulary in context; the second encourages students to review the textual analysis; and the third explores the use of diction, simile, and appeal to authority.

This lesson focuses upon the Columbian Exchange as an interwoven process with unforeseen consequences. Charles Mann expands upon the earlier theories of Alfred W. Crosby, who explored the idea of the Columbian Exchange in 1972 (for a general essay on the Columbian Exchange written by Crosby, including suggestions for class discussions, click here). Although Mann details the effects of tobacco, the potato, corn, malaria, yellow fever, the rubber industry, and other elements of the Exchange in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres fully in 1493, this lesson focuses specifically upon some effects of the Exchange in Hispaniola. The follow-up assignment allows students to extend the effects of the Exchange into the African slave trade. The author uses Colon, the Spanish spelling for Columbus, throughout, and that spelling has been retained in the excerpts for this lesson.

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions, and the follow-up assignment.

Background

When Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (the island including the modern countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) during his first voyage in 1492, he and his men did not realize the lasting effects their voyage would have on both the New World and the Old at that time and in the years to come. The Columbian Exchange is the term given to the transfer of plants, animals, disease, and technology between the Old World from which Columbus came and the New World which he found. Some exchanges were purposeful — the explorers intentionally brought animals and food — but others were accidental. In this lesson you will read about this Exchange from a description written by Charles C. Mann, a writer specializing in scientific topics. This lesson uses excerpts from a book entitled 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created in which Mann describes the effects, both intended and unintended, of the Columbian Exchange. Mann wrote 1493 to explore the Columbian Exchange as a process which is still going on today.

This lesson draws from the introduction in Mann’s book. There are three excerpts, each with close reading questions. The first excerpt is a general overview of the Exchange — while it does not include all parts of the Exchange, you will see examples of how animals and plants from one part of the world replaced those in another part of the world. In excerpt two you will explore a specific example of unintended consequences of the Columbian Exchange, when settlers thought they were simply bringing in an enjoyable food, but they wound up with an invasive pest. Finally, in excerpt three you can see the devastating effects of the Columbian Exchange upon the Taino Indians, the residents of Hispaniola before Columbus arrived. In some of the excerpts you will see Columbus spelled as Colon — this is the Spanish spelling and is used by the author.

Text Analysis

Excerpt 1

Close Reading Questions

Activity: Vocabulary
Learn definitions by exploring how words are used in context.

1. Why do you believe Columbus brought cattle, sheep or horses with him?
They were part of the European culture. They would help in farming (cattle and sheep) and communication, transportation, and war (horses). The Spanish intended to start a colony and would need the animals.

2. What would the Taino culture have been like without cattle or horses?
There would have been communication only by human messenger and fields planted by hand. There would have been no quick communication (by horse) or plowed fields or pastures (no cattle, so they were not possible or necessary) and only a few, small paths, no real roads (the only transportation was by foot).

3. What is the thesis statement of paragraph 1? How does Mann develop that thesis? Cite evidence from the text.
The thesis is “Colon and his crew did not voyage alone.” Mann develops that thesis by giving examples to prove his point, including earthworms, cockroaches, African Grasses, rats, and other animals and plants.

4. How did the introduction of cattle and sheep affect plant life on Hispaniola?
New grasses for grazing choked out native species.

5. Why is it important that alien grasses, trees, and other plants choked out native vegetation in Hispaniola?
Choking out native grasses reduced the biodiversity (the number of distinct life forms) of Hispaniola. Ecosystems that are more biodiverse (they have more distinct life forms) are more productive and are more resistant to diseases.

6. What can be the effect of introducing a new predator into an environment, such as the Indian mongoose in Hispaniola? Give an example.
It can render another species extinct, which may itself have unintended consequences. For instance, the food source for the Dominican snake may have increased in population which may have led to other effects.

7. How does Mann show that the Columbian Exchange is still ongoing?
He relates how, in 2004, the orange groves have become prey of the lime swallowtail butterflies.

8. In the second paragraph of this excerpt, Mann implies his thesis but does not actually state it. What is the implied thesis of paragraph 2? How does he imply the thesis?
Mann implies that the Columbian Exchange can have negative results. He gives examples, citing grasses that were choked out, trees that were replaced with other types of trees, and animals driven toward extinction.

In this excerpt, Mann offers an overview of the Columbian Exchange with examples.

…Colon [Columbus] and his crew did not voyage alone. They were accompanied by a menagerie of insects, plants, mammals, and microorganisms. Beginning with La Isabela [Colon’s first settlement], European expeditions brought cattle, sheep, and horses, along with crops like sugar cane (originally from New Guinea), wheat (from the Middle East), bananas (from Africa), and coffee (also from Africa). Equally important, creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitchhiked along for the ride. Earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; rats of every description — all of them poured from the hulls of Colon’s vessels and those that followed, rushing like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before.

Movqvites (Mosquito), “Histoire Naturelle
des Indes,” ca. 1586

Cattle and sheep ground the American vegetation between their flat teeth, preventing the regrowth of native shrubs and trees. Beneath their hooves would sprout grasses from Africa, possibly introduced from slave ship bedding; splay-leaved [with wide leaves] and dense on the ground, they choked out native vegetation. (Alien grasses could withstand grazing better than Caribbean groundcover plants because grasses grow from the base of the leaf, unlike most other species, which grows from the tip. Grazing consumes the growth zones of the latter but has little impact on those in the former.) Over the years forests of Caribbean palm, mahogany, and ceiba [the silk-cotton tree] became forest of Australian acacia [small tree of the mimosa family], Ethiopian shrubs, and the Central American logwood. Scurrying below, mongooses from India eagerly drove Dominican snakes toward extinction. The changes continue to this day. Orange groves, introduced to Hispaniola from Spain, have recently begun to fall to the depredation of lime swallowtail butterflies, a citrus pest from Southeast Asia that probably came over in 2004. Today Hispaniola has only small fragments of its original forest.

Excerpt 2

Close Reading Questions

Activity: Diction, Simile and Appeal to Authority
Examine three language tools Mann uses to make a complex subject easily understood.

9. According to the author and his sources, what unintended import came in to Hispaniola with plantains?
With the plantains came scale insects.

10. How does the author define scale insects?
They are small creatures with tough, waxy coats that suck the juices from plant roots and stems.

11. Define “ecological release.”
Ecological release is when an invasive species is introduced into an environment with no natural predators and subsequently the population explodes.

12. Using the example of scale insects as evidence, why are natural predators important to an ecosystem?
They help to regulate the population of a species and keep an ecosystem in balance.

13. What was the unintended effect of this import, scale insects, according to Wilson? Why did they have this effect?
The scale insects sucked juices from plants and stems. They had no natural enemies, so their populations grew greatly. The scale insects became a food source for fire ants. With a virtually unlimited food source, the fire ant population grew greatly. The fire ants invaded settlers’ homes. This proved to be dangerous to the settlers.

14. Mann begins the second paragraph in this excerpt with “So far this is informed speculation.” What effect does this admission have on our perception of Mann as an author?
It reminds the reader that Mann is approaching his topic from a scientific perspective, being careful to alert readers to what is proven and what is not. This helps to establish him as a writer we can trust.

15. What document from the 1500s seems to confirm this unintended effect?
Bartolome de Las Casas wrote of a sudden infestation of fire ants in 1518 and 1519.

16. What was the unintended effect to settlers of the introduction of plantains to Hispaniola?
Although they had plantains to eat, they also had to deal with fire ants. As a result, they abandoned their homes.

17. How does Mann combine 16th and 20th century evidence?
He uses 20th century science to explain a 16th century eye-witness account.

Excerpt 3

Close Reading Questions

18. What is the thesis of this excerpt?
Mann asserts that “the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself.”

19. What evidence does Mann use to develop this thesis?
He uses Columbus’s original account, 16th century official Spanish documents, and estimates by modern historians.

20. Why did the Spanish conduct a census of the Indians on Hispaniola in 1514? What did the census find regarding the Taino population?
The Spanish conducted a census in order to count the Taino so that they could be assigned to Spanish settlers as laborers. This was part of the encomienda system, whereby a Spanish settler was given a plantation as well as the labor of all the Indians who lived on that plantation. The census-takers found that there were few Taino left, perhaps only about 26,000.

21. According to the author, what two factors caused this change in population? Which cause was the most influential?
The two causes were Spanish cruelty and the introduction of diseases by the Columbian Exchange. The most influential was the introduction of disease.

22. The third sentence in paragraph 2 of this excerpt uses a rhetorical device called asyndeton. Asyndeton is a list of items with conjunctions omitted and can be used to imply that there are more items that could be added to the list. What types of items does the author list using asyndeton? What is the effect?
The author lists diseases, both viruses and bacteria. The effect is a “piling up”, implying that more diseases were brought to Hispaniola as well, but the author may not have the space in the sentence to list them. In fact, other diseases were introduced by the Columbian Exchange, including malaria, yellow fever, whooping cough, chicken pox, the bubonic plague, and leprosy.

23. Why was the introduction of these diseases so devastating for the Taino and not the Spanish explorers?
The Taino had never been exposed to these diseases before and therefore had no natural immunity to stop or control the spread of the disease. The Spanish did have some natural immunity, since the diseases were present in Europe at that time.

24. What is the effect of Mann including the information about the first recorded epidemic, which occurred within one year of Columbus’s arrival?
He reminds the reader that the devastating effects of diseases brought by the Exchange happened almost immediately for the Taino. This conveys the seriousness of the Exchange as well as the power of the diseases in a population with no natural immunity.

Activity: Review
Review the central points of the textual analysis.

Mann explains the most “dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange.”

From the human perspective, the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself. Spanish accounts suggest that Hispaniola had a large native population: Colón, for instance, casually described the Taino as “innumerable, for I believe there to be millions upon millions of them.” Las Casas claimed the population to be “more than three million.” Modern researchers have not nailed down the number; estimates range from 60,000 to almost 8,000,000. A careful study in 2003 argued that the true figure was “a few hundred thousand.” No matter what the original number, though, the European impact was horrific. In 1514, twenty-two years after Colon’s first voyage, the Spanish government counted up the Indians on Hispaniola for the purpose of allocating them among colonists as laborers. Census agents fanned the across the island but found only 26,000 Taino. Thirty-four years later, according to one scholarly Spanish resident, fewer than 500 Taino were alive….

Spanish cruelty played its part in the calamity, but its larger cause was the Columbian Exchange. Before Colon none of the epidemic diseases common in Europe and Asia existed in the Americas. The viruses that cause smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measles, encephalitis, and viral pneumonia; the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, and bacterial meningitis — by a quirk of evolutionary history, all were unknown in the Western Hemisphere. Shipped across the ocean from Europe these maladies consumed Hispaniola’s native population with stunning rapacity. The first recorded epidemic, perhaps due to swine flu, was in 1493….

Joan Vinckeboons, “Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico,” 1639(?)

Follow-Up Assignment

Mann describes in excerpt three a major change in Taino population on Hispaniola and the effects of this change on the Taino population and the Spanish. But another group was also affected — enslaved Africans. The Spanish used the encomienda system in Hispaniola, whereby conquistadors were given large plantations as well as the Indian slave labor of all who lived on the plantation. Through this system the Spanish moved quickly to enslave Indians, even though the official mission of the Spanish was to Christianize them. In response to pressure from the Catholic Church, in 1542 King Carlos V banned Indian slavery, opening the way for African slaves. Mann writes,

By 1501, seven years after La Isabella’s founding, so many Africans [as slaves] had come to Hispaniola that the alarmed Spanish king and queen instructed the island’s governor not to allow any more to land [but]…the colonists saw that the Africans appeared immune to disease, didn’t have local social networks that would help them escape, and possessed useful skills — many African societies were well known for their ironworking and horsemanship. Slave ships bellied up to the docks of Santo Domingo in ever-greater numbers. The slaves were not as easily controlled as the colonists had hoped [and]…. No longer were Africans slipped into the Americas by the handful. The rise of sugar production [sugar production is very labor intensive] in Mexico and the concurrent rise in Brazil opened the floodgates. Between 1550 and 1650…slave ships ferried across about 650,000 Africans, with the total split more or less equally between Spanish and Portuguese America…. Soon they [Africans] were more ubiquitous [existing everywhere] in the Americas than Europeans, with results the latter never expected. (Mann, p.387–388)

What do you believe might have been some of the “results the latter [the Europeans] never expected”? In what ways can New World slavery be said to be related to the Columbian Exchange? Discuss the possible unintended consequences with your classmates. Use specific examples as evidence.

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

• menagerie: collection of wild or unusual animals
• alien: foreign, hostile
• depredation: ravages
• bedlam: wild confusion
• entomologist: insect expert
• phenomenon: observable event or fact
• dismayed: alarmed
• speculation: thoughtful opinion
• culprit: villain
• horrific: causing horror
• fanned: spread out
• calamity: great disaster
• quirk: peculiar action
• maladies: chronic diseases
• rapacity: fierce hunger

Text:

• Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Vintage Books, 2012).

Images:

• Bouttats, Pieter Balthazar, 1666–1755, engraver. : El almirante Christoral Colon descubre la Isla Española, iy haze poner una Cruz, etc. / P. B. Bouttats fec., Aqua forti. [1728] Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a10998/?co=cph (accessed September 15, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 71v–72) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/72
• Vinckeboons, Joan. Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Map. [1639?] Pen-and-ink and watercolor. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA http://www.loc.gov/item/2003623402/ (accessed September 15, 2014)
• De insulis nuper in mari Indico repertis [Christopher Columbus discovering America]. Woodcut, 1494. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Illus. in Incun. 1494 .V47 Vollbehr Coll [Rare Book RR] http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g04806/?co=cph (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christopher Columbus leaving Spain to go to America. London : J. Edwards, 1800? 1 print : engraving. Illus. in: America, part 4 / Theodore de Bry, 1528-1598, ed., 1800?, plate VIII. Library of Congress Miscellaneous Items in High Demand Collection http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90715316/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christophe Colomb parmi les Indiens / lith. de Turgis. Paris : Vve. Turgis, [between 1850 and 1900]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93504854/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 11v–12) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/12

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Copyright National Humanities Center, 2015

In what ways did the arrival of Europeans to America bring about unforeseen and unintended consequences for the people and environments of both the New World and the Old?

Understanding

The Columbian Exchange — the interchange of plants, animals, disease, and technology sparked by Columbus’s voyages to the New World — marked a critical point in history. It allowed ecologies and cultures that had previously been separated by oceans to mix in new and unpredictable ways. It was an interconnected web of events with immediate and extended consequences that could neither be predicted nor controlled.

Teacher’s Note

In this lesson students will explore a description of the Columbian Exchange written by Charles C. Mann as part of the introduction to his book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. In three excerpts students will examine elements of the Exchange — an overview, a specific biological example of unintended consequences, and finally an example of unintended human costs of the Columbian Exchange. Each excerpt is accompanied by close reading questions for students to complete. The text analysis is accompanied by three interactive exercises to aid in student understanding. The first interactive allows students to explore vocabulary in context; the second encourages students to review the textual analysis; and the third explores the use of diction, simile, and appeal to authority.

This lesson focuses upon the Columbian Exchange as an interwoven process with unforeseen consequences. Charles Mann expands upon the earlier theories of Alfred W. Crosby, who explored the idea of the Columbian Exchange in 1972 (for a general essay on the Columbian Exchange written by Crosby, including suggestions for class discussions, click here). Although Mann details the effects of tobacco, the potato, corn, malaria, yellow fever, the rubber industry, and other elements of the Exchange in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres fully in 1493, this lesson focuses specifically upon some effects of the Exchange in Hispaniola. The follow-up assignment allows students to extend the effects of the Exchange into the African slave trade. The author uses Colon, the Spanish spelling for Columbus, throughout, and that spelling has been retained in the excerpts for this lesson.

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions, and the follow-up assignment.

Background

When Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (the island including the modern countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) during his first voyage in 1492, he and his men did not realize the lasting effects their voyage would have on both the New World and the Old at that time and in the years to come. The Columbian Exchange is the term given to the transfer of plants, animals, disease, and technology between the Old World from which Columbus came and the New World which he found. Some exchanges were purposeful — the explorers intentionally brought animals and food — but others were accidental. In this lesson you will read about this Exchange from a description written by Charles C. Mann, a writer specializing in scientific topics. This lesson uses excerpts from a book entitled 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created in which Mann describes the effects, both intended and unintended, of the Columbian Exchange. Mann wrote 1493 to explore the Columbian Exchange as a process which is still going on today.

This lesson draws from the introduction in Mann’s book. There are three excerpts, each with close reading questions. The first excerpt is a general overview of the Exchange — while it does not include all parts of the Exchange, you will see examples of how animals and plants from one part of the world replaced those in another part of the world. In excerpt two you will explore a specific example of unintended consequences of the Columbian Exchange, when settlers thought they were simply bringing in an enjoyable food, but they wound up with an invasive pest. Finally, in excerpt three you can see the devastating effects of the Columbian Exchange upon the Taino Indians, the residents of Hispaniola before Columbus arrived. In some of the excerpts you will see Columbus spelled as Colon — this is the Spanish spelling and is used by the author.

Text Analysis

Excerpt 1

Close Reading Questions

Activity: Vocabulary
Learn definitions by exploring how words are used in context.

1. Why do you believe Columbus brought cattle, sheep or horses with him?
They were part of the European culture. They would help in farming (cattle and sheep) and communication, transportation, and war (horses). The Spanish intended to start a colony and would need the animals.

2. What would the Taino culture have been like without cattle or horses?
There would have been communication only by human messenger and fields planted by hand. There would have been no quick communication (by horse) or plowed fields or pastures (no cattle, so they were not possible or necessary) and only a few, small paths, no real roads (the only transportation was by foot).

3. What is the thesis statement of paragraph 1? How does Mann develop that thesis? Cite evidence from the text.
The thesis is “Colon and his crew did not voyage alone.” Mann develops that thesis by giving examples to prove his point, including earthworms, cockroaches, African Grasses, rats, and other animals and plants.

4. How did the introduction of cattle and sheep affect plant life on Hispaniola?
New grasses for grazing choked out native species.

5. Why is it important that alien grasses, trees, and other plants choked out native vegetation in Hispaniola?
Choking out native grasses reduced the biodiversity (the number of distinct life forms) of Hispaniola. Ecosystems that are more biodiverse (they have more distinct life forms) are more productive and are more resistant to diseases.

6. What can be the effect of introducing a new predator into an environment, such as the Indian mongoose in Hispaniola? Give an example.
It can render another species extinct, which may itself have unintended consequences. For instance, the food source for the Dominican snake may have increased in population which may have led to other effects.

7. How does Mann show that the Columbian Exchange is still ongoing?
He relates how, in 2004, the orange groves have become prey of the lime swallowtail butterflies.

8. In the second paragraph of this excerpt, Mann implies his thesis but does not actually state it. What is the implied thesis of paragraph 2? How does he imply the thesis?
Mann implies that the Columbian Exchange can have negative results. He gives examples, citing grasses that were choked out, trees that were replaced with other types of trees, and animals driven toward extinction.

In this excerpt, Mann offers an overview of the Columbian Exchange with examples.

…Colon [Columbus] and his crew did not voyage alone. They were accompanied by a menagerie of insects, plants, mammals, and microorganisms. Beginning with La Isabela [Colon’s first settlement], European expeditions brought cattle, sheep, and horses, along with crops like sugar cane (originally from New Guinea), wheat (from the Middle East), bananas (from Africa), and coffee (also from Africa). Equally important, creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitchhiked along for the ride. Earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; rats of every description — all of them poured from the hulls of Colon’s vessels and those that followed, rushing like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before.

Movqvites (Mosquito), “Histoire Naturelle
des Indes,” ca. 1586

Cattle and sheep ground the American vegetation between their flat teeth, preventing the regrowth of native shrubs and trees. Beneath their hooves would sprout grasses from Africa, possibly introduced from slave ship bedding; splay-leaved [with wide leaves] and dense on the ground, they choked out native vegetation. (Alien grasses could withstand grazing better than Caribbean groundcover plants because grasses grow from the base of the leaf, unlike most other species, which grows from the tip. Grazing consumes the growth zones of the latter but has little impact on those in the former.) Over the years forests of Caribbean palm, mahogany, and ceiba [the silk-cotton tree] became forest of Australian acacia [small tree of the mimosa family], Ethiopian shrubs, and the Central American logwood. Scurrying below, mongooses from India eagerly drove Dominican snakes toward extinction. The changes continue to this day. Orange groves, introduced to Hispaniola from Spain, have recently begun to fall to the depredation of lime swallowtail butterflies, a citrus pest from Southeast Asia that probably came over in 2004. Today Hispaniola has only small fragments of its original forest.

Excerpt 2

Close Reading Questions

Activity: Diction, Simile and Appeal to Authority
Examine three language tools Mann uses to make a complex subject easily understood.

9. According to the author and his sources, what unintended import came in to Hispaniola with plantains?
With the plantains came scale insects.

10. How does the author define scale insects?
They are small creatures with tough, waxy coats that suck the juices from plant roots and stems.

11. Define “ecological release.”
Ecological release is when an invasive species is introduced into an environment with no natural predators and subsequently the population explodes.

12. Using the example of scale insects as evidence, why are natural predators important to an ecosystem?
They help to regulate the population of a species and keep an ecosystem in balance.

13. What was the unintended effect of this import, scale insects, according to Wilson? Why did they have this effect?
The scale insects sucked juices from plants and stems. They had no natural enemies, so their populations grew greatly. The scale insects became a food source for fire ants. With a virtually unlimited food source, the fire ant population grew greatly. The fire ants invaded settlers’ homes. This proved to be dangerous to the settlers.

14. Mann begins the second paragraph in this excerpt with “So far this is informed speculation.” What effect does this admission have on our perception of Mann as an author?
It reminds the reader that Mann is approaching his topic from a scientific perspective, being careful to alert readers to what is proven and what is not. This helps to establish him as a writer we can trust.

15. What document from the 1500s seems to confirm this unintended effect?
Bartolome de Las Casas wrote of a sudden infestation of fire ants in 1518 and 1519.

16. What was the unintended effect to settlers of the introduction of plantains to Hispaniola?
Although they had plantains to eat, they also had to deal with fire ants. As a result, they abandoned their homes.

17. How does Mann combine 16th and 20th century evidence?
He uses 20th century science to explain a 16th century eye-witness account.

Excerpt 3

Close Reading Questions

18. What is the thesis of this excerpt?
Mann asserts that “the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself.”

19. What evidence does Mann use to develop this thesis?
He uses Columbus’s original account, 16th century official Spanish documents, and estimates by modern historians.

20. Why did the Spanish conduct a census of the Indians on Hispaniola in 1514? What did the census find regarding the Taino population?
The Spanish conducted a census in order to count the Taino so that they could be assigned to Spanish settlers as laborers. This was part of the encomienda system, whereby a Spanish settler was given a plantation as well as the labor of all the Indians who lived on that plantation. The census-takers found that there were few Taino left, perhaps only about 26,000.

21. According to the author, what two factors caused this change in population? Which cause was the most influential?
The two causes were Spanish cruelty and the introduction of diseases by the Columbian Exchange. The most influential was the introduction of disease.

22. The third sentence in paragraph 2 of this excerpt uses a rhetorical device called asyndeton. Asyndeton is a list of items with conjunctions omitted and can be used to imply that there are more items that could be added to the list. What types of items does the author list using asyndeton? What is the effect?
The author lists diseases, both viruses and bacteria. The effect is a “piling up”, implying that more diseases were brought to Hispaniola as well, but the author may not have the space in the sentence to list them. In fact, other diseases were introduced by the Columbian Exchange, including malaria, yellow fever, whooping cough, chicken pox, the bubonic plague, and leprosy.

23. Why was the introduction of these diseases so devastating for the Taino and not the Spanish explorers?
The Taino had never been exposed to these diseases before and therefore had no natural immunity to stop or control the spread of the disease. The Spanish did have some natural immunity, since the diseases were present in Europe at that time.

24. What is the effect of Mann including the information about the first recorded epidemic, which occurred within one year of Columbus’s arrival?
He reminds the reader that the devastating effects of diseases brought by the Exchange happened almost immediately for the Taino. This conveys the seriousness of the Exchange as well as the power of the diseases in a population with no natural immunity.

Activity: Review
Review the central points of the textual analysis.

Mann explains the most “dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange.”

From the human perspective, the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself. Spanish accounts suggest that Hispaniola had a large native population: Colón, for instance, casually described the Taino as “innumerable, for I believe there to be millions upon millions of them.” Las Casas claimed the population to be “more than three million.” Modern researchers have not nailed down the number; estimates range from 60,000 to almost 8,000,000. A careful study in 2003 argued that the true figure was “a few hundred thousand.” No matter what the original number, though, the European impact was horrific. In 1514, twenty-two years after Colon’s first voyage, the Spanish government counted up the Indians on Hispaniola for the purpose of allocating them among colonists as laborers. Census agents fanned the across the island but found only 26,000 Taino. Thirty-four years later, according to one scholarly Spanish resident, fewer than 500 Taino were alive….

Spanish cruelty played its part in the calamity, but its larger cause was the Columbian Exchange. Before Colon none of the epidemic diseases common in Europe and Asia existed in the Americas. The viruses that cause smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measles, encephalitis, and viral pneumonia; the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, and bacterial meningitis — by a quirk of evolutionary history, all were unknown in the Western Hemisphere. Shipped across the ocean from Europe these maladies consumed Hispaniola’s native population with stunning rapacity. The first recorded epidemic, perhaps due to swine flu, was in 1493….

Joan Vinckeboons, “Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico,” 1639(?)

Follow-Up Assignment

Mann describes in excerpt three a major change in Taino population on Hispaniola and the effects of this change on the Taino population and the Spanish. But another group was also affected — enslaved Africans. The Spanish used the encomienda system in Hispaniola, whereby conquistadors were given large plantations as well as the Indian slave labor of all who lived on the plantation. Through this system the Spanish moved quickly to enslave Indians, even though the official mission of the Spanish was to Christianize them. In response to pressure from the Catholic Church, in 1542 King Carlos V banned Indian slavery, opening the way for African slaves. Mann writes,

By 1501, seven years after La Isabella’s founding, so many Africans [as slaves] had come to Hispaniola that the alarmed Spanish king and queen instructed the island’s governor not to allow any more to land [but]…the colonists saw that the Africans appeared immune to disease, didn’t have local social networks that would help them escape, and possessed useful skills — many African societies were well known for their ironworking and horsemanship. Slave ships bellied up to the docks of Santo Domingo in ever-greater numbers. The slaves were not as easily controlled as the colonists had hoped [and]…. No longer were Africans slipped into the Americas by the handful. The rise of sugar production [sugar production is very labor intensive] in Mexico and the concurrent rise in Brazil opened the floodgates. Between 1550 and 1650…slave ships ferried across about 650,000 Africans, with the total split more or less equally between Spanish and Portuguese America…. Soon they [Africans] were more ubiquitous [existing everywhere] in the Americas than Europeans, with results the latter never expected. (Mann, p.387–388)

What do you believe might have been some of the “results the latter [the Europeans] never expected”? In what ways can New World slavery be said to be related to the Columbian Exchange? Discuss the possible unintended consequences with your classmates. Use specific examples as evidence.

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

• menagerie: collection of wild or unusual animals
• alien: foreign, hostile
• depredation: ravages
• bedlam: wild confusion
• entomologist: insect expert
• phenomenon: observable event or fact
• dismayed: alarmed
• speculation: thoughtful opinion
• culprit: villain
• horrific: causing horror
• fanned: spread out
• calamity: great disaster
• quirk: peculiar action
• maladies: chronic diseases
• rapacity: fierce hunger

Text:

• Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Vintage Books, 2012).

Images:

• Bouttats, Pieter Balthazar, 1666–1755, engraver. : El almirante Christoral Colon descubre la Isla Española, iy haze poner una Cruz, etc. / P. B. Bouttats fec., Aqua forti. [1728] Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a10998/?co=cph (accessed September 15, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 71v–72) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/72
• Vinckeboons, Joan. Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Map. [1639?] Pen-and-ink and watercolor. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA http://www.loc.gov/item/2003623402/ (accessed September 15, 2014)
• De insulis nuper in mari Indico repertis [Christopher Columbus discovering America]. Woodcut, 1494. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Illus. in Incun. 1494 .V47 Vollbehr Coll [Rare Book RR] http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g04806/?co=cph (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christopher Columbus leaving Spain to go to America. London : J. Edwards, 1800? 1 print : engraving. Illus. in: America, part 4 / Theodore de Bry, 1528-1598, ed., 1800?, plate VIII. Library of Congress Miscellaneous Items in High Demand Collection http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90715316/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christophe Colomb parmi les Indiens / lith. de Turgis. Paris : Vve. Turgis, [between 1850 and 1900]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93504854/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 11v–12) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/12

The post The Columbian Exchange appeared first on America in Class.

Copyright National Humanities Center, 2015

What arguments did Bartolome de Las Casas make in favor of more humane treatment of Native Americans as he exposed the atrocities of the Spanish conquistadors in Hispaniola?

Understanding

First contact experiences on Hispaniola included brutal interactions between the Spanish and the Native Americans. Conquistadors subjugated populations primarily to garner personal economic wealth, and Natives little understood the nature of the conquest. As early as 1522 Bartolome de Las Casas worked to denounce these activities on political, economic, moral, and religious grounds by chronicling the actions of the conquistadors for the Spanish court.

Teacher’s Note

Using excerpts from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, published in 1552, students will explore in this lesson how Bartolome de Las Casas (1484–1566) argued for more humane treatment of Native Americans in the Spanish New World colonies. In the first excerpt students will look at the author’s general description of the actions of the Spanish on Hispaniola, home to the Taino Indians. In the next three excerpts students will investigate the Spanish presence in a specific Hispaniola kingdom, Magua. De Las Casas argued to the Spanish King that his agents, the conquistadors, were brutalizing native peoples and that those actions were destroying the Spanish as well as the natives. A Brief Account details extremely graphic interactions between the Taino and the Spanish, but by strategic excerption this lesson works to temper the more sensational descriptions of atrocities while remaining true to the tone of the original text.

This lesson approaches American first contacts by reminding students that the exploration of the Americas involved brutal invasions with economic rather than religious objectives uppermost in the minds of the conquistadors. The New World inhabitants little understood the goals of the invaders and were not able to launch a successful defense.

The events related in this lesson occurred mainly during the reigns of Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516) and Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504). Their marriage in 1469 marked the uniting of Spain through a joint reign, although both Aragon and Castile maintained independent political, economic and social identities. De Las Casas occasionally refers to the Spanish as “Castilian.”

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. In addition to close reading questions, interactive exercises and an optional followup lesson accompany the text. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and the follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive PDF, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions and the follow-up assignment.

Background

In this lesson you will explore excerpts from one of the first written accounts of interactions between Spanish conquistadors and Native Americans. The first passage describes Hispaniola, the Caribbean island that today includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic. One of the islands explored during his first voyage in 1492, Columbus found there the self-sufficient Taino tribe, numbering up to 3 million people by some estimates. The following passages detail interactions between Spanish conquistadors and the Taino.

Why did the Spanish land in Hispaniola? In brief, they explored for “God, Gold, and Glory.” King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, known as the “Catholic Monarchs,” sought to centralize Spain as a Catholic stronghold. Religious passions spread widely after Spain had driven Moors and Jews out of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, and the Pope issued a decree in 1493 exhorting Spain to spread the Catholic faith into new lands. In addition, Pope Alexander VI granted to Spain any new world territory not already claimed by a Christian prince, and these newly discovered lands offered wide opportunities to convert to Christianity large numbers of “heathens.”

In order to understand the Spanish hunger for gold in the 16th century, one must recognize the Spanish treasure fleet system. Spain at this time had a strong navy but no real industry within the country, and so she had to buy all her goods from other nations, making gold and silver very important. To help fund their naval and colonial activities in the midst of competition with Portugal, the Spanish King and Queen financed Columbus’s voyages to search for trade routes and fresh sources of gold and silver through new colonies. The New World gold and silver mines became the largest source of precious metals in the world, and Spain passed laws that colonists could trade only with Spanish ships in order to keep the gold and silver flowing through Spain. The large flow of treasure to Spain from the capture of the Aztecs (1517), the Incas (1534), and Mexico (1545) sharpened the appetite for gold and silver in Hispaniola.

Columbus was soon followed by other explorers seeking glory for themselves as well as for Spain, including Bartolome de Las Casas (1484–1566), author of this text. Las Casas knew Christopher Columbus — his father and brother went with Columbus on his second voyage, and Bartolome edited Columbus’s travel journals. The Spanish King awarded de Las Casas and his family an encomienda, a plantation that included the slave labor of the Indians who lived on it, but after witnessing the brutality of other Spanish explorers to the local tribes, Bartolome gave it up. He became a Dominican priest, spending the rest of his life writing, speaking and encouraging the Christian conversion of the North American natives by peaceful rather than military means. De Las Casas started a mission in Guatemala and wrote several accounts, aimed at the king and queen and members of the royal court, that sought to expose the brutal methods of the conquistadors and persuade Spanish officials to protect the Indians. The excerpts in this lesson are from probably the best known of those accounts, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, published in 1552.

What were the effects of his work? While the Pope had granted Spain sovereignty over the New World, de Las Casas argued that the property rights and rights to their own labor still belonged to the native peoples. Natives were subjects of the Spanish crown, and to treat them as less than human violated the laws of God, nature, and Spain. He told King Ferdinand that in 1515 scores of natives were being slaughtered by avaricious conquistadors without having been converted. He sought to protect the souls of Spain and the conquistadors against divine retribution for the destruction of the native populations by awakening the moral indignation of Christian men to counter the growing tide of barbarism. Between 1513 and 1543 Spain issued several laws attempting to regulate the encomienda system and protect native populations, but enforcement was haphazard and the subjugation of the native populations was already a fact. Nonetheless, through his self-proclaimed goal of bearing witness to the savagery of the Europeans against the simply civility of the indigenous peoples, de Las Casas became characterized as the conscience of Spanish exploration.

If the immediate impact of his work was marginal, the long-term influence would be substantial. In the passages excerpted here and throughout A Brief Account, de Las Casas repeatedly asserts that he witnessed the events he is describing and thus bases his argument on the authority of his first-hand testimony. This practice makes his work an early example of empiricism, the idea that arguments and conclusions should be based upon observable fact. Unquestioned today, in the 1500s this was a new concept, for at that time people held that the proof of an argument should be based on the interpretation of texts rather than the concrete experience of an eye witness.

De Las Casas’ book describes events he witnessed on the island of Hispaniola. As your read these excerpts think about what the Indian kingdoms were like when the Spanish arrived. How did the Indians initially respond to the Spanish? How did the Spanish respond to the Indians? How does the fact that de Las Casas was an eyewitness to these events lend authority to this account?

Text Analysis

Excerpt 1

Close Reading Questions

1. What did the Spanish do to the Natives?
They enslaved them and took their food.

2. How would you characterize the Spanish treatment of the natives?
It was very violent. The author describes the capture as “bloody slaughter and destruction.”

3. How did the Natives come to characterize the Spanish? Why?
The Natives came to believe that the Spanish “had not their Mission from Heaven” because the Spanish so cruelly treated the Indians. The Indians saw them as evil.

4. What does this characterization tell us about the original perception of the Natives regarding the Spanish?
They originally perceived them to be from heaven and believed that they had come for positive purposes.

5. How did the Natives respond to the Spanish cruelty?
They hid their food from the Spanish and hid their wives and children in “lurking holes” [caves]. Some of them ran away to the mountains to escape punishment by the Spanish.

6. How did the Natives respond to the Spanish violence against them? What were the results?
The Indians “immediately took up Arms.” However, the author describes the native weapons as those that boys play with rather than real weapons. They had very little effect.

7. Once the Spaniards realized that the Indians were resisting, what did they do?
The Spaniards mounted their horses and attacked cities and towns, killing everyone.

8. What tone does de Las Casas create in this excerpt? How does he create that tone? Cite evidence from the text.
De Las Casas uses diction (word choice) to create a tone of outrage. He is angry at the injustices being done to the Natives. He uses phrases such as “the bloody slaughter and destruction of men,” “making them slaves, and ill-treating them,” “laid violent hands on the Governours,” and “exercise the bloody butcheries.” De Las Casas conveys immediate physical violence through words like “bloody,” “destruction,” “violent,” and “butcheries.” He conveys short and long-term violence, including the losses of liberty and culture, through words like “slaves” and “ill-treating.”

9. How does de Las Casas portray the natives in this passage? Cite evidence from the text.
He portrays them as naïve, innocent children. It apparently took them a while to figure out that the Spanish were not on a “Mission from Heaven.” The Indians are essentially defenseless against the Spanish, and when they do take up arms, their weapons resemble those of boys.

10. How does this portrayal advance de Las Casas’s argument?
It establishes the vulnerability of the Indians and illustrates why they need the protection of the Spanish king.

Activity: Vocabulary
Learn definitions by exploring how words are used in context.

In this excerpt de Las Casas speaks of the beginning of Spanish atrocities on the island of Hispaniola. Pay attention to how the Spaniards viewed the inhabitants of Hispaniola, to how the Natives originally viewed the Spanish, and to how the Natives’ perceptions changed.

(1) In this Isle, which, as we have said, the Spaniards first attempted, the bloody slaughter and destruction of Men first began: for they violently forced away Women and Children to make them Slaves, and ill-treated them, consuming and wasting their Food, which they had purchased with great sweat, toil, and yet remained dissatisfied too,… (2) and one individual Spaniard consumed more Victuals in one day, than would serve to maintain Three Families a Month, every one consisting of Ten Persons. (3) Now being oppressed by such evil usage, and afflicted with such greate Torments and violent Entertainment [treatment] they began to understand that such Men as those had not their Mission from Heaven; and therefore some of them conceal’d their Provisions and others to their Wives and Children in lurking holes, but some, to avoid the obdurate and dreadful temper of such a Nation, sought their Refuge on the craggy tops of Mountains; for the Spaniards did not only entertain them with Cuffs, Blows, and wicked Cudgelling, but laid violent hands also on the [Taino] Governours of Cities… (4) From which time they began to consider by what wayes and means they might expel the Spaniards out of their Countrey, and immediately took up Arms. (5) But, good God, what Arms, do you imagine? Namely such, both Offensive and Defensive, as resemble Reeds wherewith Boys sport with one another, more than Manly Arms and Weapons.

(6) Which the Spaniards no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon’d with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar’d no Age, or Sex….

Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, 1639

Excerpt 2

Excerpt 3

Close Reading Questions

Activity: Inferences
Examine the conclusions that de Las Casas draws from his observations.

17. Describe Guarionex’s kingdom, including its political structure. Why does de Las Casas describe it as he does?
Guarionex was the “King and Lord” of Magua. The organization of this kingdom is detailed in a very similar way to the medieval kingdoms of Europe, in which vassals and Lords serve the King and, when asked, provide him with an army. In Magua each vassal could contribution 16,000 soldiers. This description would be one with which the Spanish court could identify.

18. De Las Casas describes King Guarionex as courageous, even tempered, obedient, and moral. What is the effect of this description?
It clearly contrasts King Guarionex with the Spanish conquistadors, who are presented as evil. It reminds the Spanish King and Queen that the conquistadors are brutalizing people who not only would be good Spanish citizens but who are also “moral,” that is to say, virtuous people with souls, worthy of conversion and capable of salvation.

19. What relationship did King Guarionex have with Spain? How did he prove this relationship?
He was “devoted to the service of the Castilian Kings.” He had each of his lords present him with a bell full of gold to give to the Spanish.

20. Why was the king unable to continue the full measure of gold tribute?
His men were not talented miners and so he cut the amount of gold offered in half.

21. Rather than large gold tributes, what alternative for making money did King Guarionex (the Caiu) offer in sentence 16?
He offered his loyalty (“service”) to the king of Spain on the condition that he (Guarionex) be allowed to cultivate lands on which the Spanish originally settled. This would allow for farming and food production.

22. According to de Las Casas, even at a reduced tribute how much gold could the Spanish King expect to receive each year?
At least 3 million Spanish crowns per year.

23. If the Taino subjects “understood not the practical use of digging in Golden Mines,” what does that imply about the value of gold in the Taino culture?
It implies that gold was not that valuable to them, or they would have known how to mine it.

Excerpt 4

Close Reading Questions

24. How did the Spanish react when King Guarionex reduced the gold tribute?
One of the Spanish captains raped Guarionex’s wife.

25. Based on the Spanish reaction, what can you infer about how they view Guarionex, a king? Why?
They do not consider him a king and do not respect him. They believe he cannot fight back. They would never do something like this to a European king.

26. How did King Guarionex respond to the Spanish?
Rather than attacking in revenge he escaped the Spanish and fled to the Province De Los Ciquayos, where one of his Vassals ruled.

27. How did the Spanish respond to King Guarionex’s actions?
They raised war against the king, “laid waste and desolate[d] the whole region,” and took the King prisoner. They chained him and loaded him on a ship to send him to Spain.

28. What happened to the ship? How did de Las Casas see this as divine (God-given) justice?
The ship was sunk at sea, with a loss of many Spaniards and much gold. De Las Cases saw this as divine justice because he believed God intervened and punished the Spanish because they were guilty of taking Taino gold and imprisoning their King.

29. The Spanish kings considered themselves champions of Christendom during this time, with a special responsibility to spread the Gospel and remain in God’s graces. What is the implication of sentence 24, “Thus it pleased God to revenge their enormous impieties?”
By using the ship sinking as an example of God-given justice, the implication is that if the Spanish king does not protect the natives, like the conquistadors he will also be exposed to God’s wrath.

30. According to de Las Casas what was the true motivation of the Spanish explorers?
The Spanish explorers were motivated by “avarice and ambition.” They wanted to control the Indians and take the Taino lands, including the gold, for themselves.

31. If you were a king or queen of Spain who sent the conquistadors to the New World to Christianize natives and ship back gold and silver to Spain, how would you respond to the story detailed here by de Las Casas? Why?
It would be enraging. It is obviously treason. De Las Casas clearly states that the Spanish explorers were determined to “no more or less intentionally, than by all these indirect wayes to disappoint and expel the Kings of Castile out of those Dominions and Territories, that they themselves having usurped the Supreme and Regal Empire.” The conquistadors were trying to cheat the King and Queen out of the lands, goods, gold and others items to be found in Hispaniola and instead take it for themselves. Their actions imperiled Spain’s role as Protector of the Faith and infringed upon the role of the Spanish king as sovereign to the indigenous Americans.

Activity: Review
Review the central points of the textual analysis.

Follow-Up Assignment

People in positions of power or influence will sometimes change negative behaviors if these behaviors are made public. De Las Casas hoped that by making the actions of the conquistadors well-known he could bring pressure upon them to change their treatment of the Natives. Choose an example from history or current events where this principle has been applied, either successfully or unsuccessfully. You might investigate Helen Hunt Jackson (Century of Dishonor), Martin Luther King, Jr. (Montgomery Bus Boycott or other protests), the Arab Spring (2010–2012), issues from local, state, or national politics, or other topics as directed by your teacher.

In what ways did making an action or actions known to the public change the situation? What were the effects of these changes (or lack of changes)? Once you have finished your research, design a PowerPoint slide, a Prezi, an Animoto, or other technological presentation as directed by your teacher that displays your research. Share your information with your classmates.

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

• victuals: food
• afflicted: causing suffering
• obdurate: stubborn, inflexible
• dreadful: causing fear
• cudgelling: beating
• strategems: deceitful plans
• puissant: powerful
• rivulets: small streams
• prodigious: large
• compass: proper limits
• vassals: subordinate land holders
• potent: mighty; powerful
• endued: endowed
• pacifick: peaceful, calm
• proferred: offered
• condescended: submitted
• remuneration: pay, reward
• clement: merciful; pleasant
• benign: gracious, kind
• consort: spouse of a king or queen
• ingominy: public disgrace
• unjuriously: harmfully, offensively
• abscond: leave quickly and secretly
• devested: taken from
• connived: overlooked
• desolate: destroyed
• fetters: chains, shackles
• ingot: gold or silver brick
• impieties: lack of reverence
• goaded: encouraged
• insatiable: cannot be satisfied
• avarice: extreme greed
• candidly: truthfully
• usurped: overthrown

Text:

• de Las Casas, Bartolome. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. Project Gutenberg, 2007. [http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20321/pg20321.html]

Images:

• “Fray Bartholomew de Las Casas,” from the portrait drawn and engraved by Enguidanos. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23466/23466-h/23466-h.html#fig1 [accessed March, 2015]
• Joan Vinckeboons, “Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico,” c. 1639. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. http://www.loc.gov/item/2003623402/ [accessed March, 2015]
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes, Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 11v–12) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/98 [accessed March, 2015]

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