all right this is open stacks u.s history chapter 3 section 4 the impact of colonization so in this section we're going to look very broadly at the impact that colonization had on both the americas and europe but one important point to make here was that all colonial societies were not created equally and i want to use two different social pyramids to explain that point recall that a social pyramid is a visualization of how societies or in this case colonial societies are created and it generally shows you two things one those people who have the most power and influence are typically located at the top of the pyramid but also to demonstrate the number of individuals that fall into various social classes so here we're just going to look at the societies that were created in new spain and compare that to what we might call the plantation societies this would be places like the caribbean [Music] caribbean the sugar plantations um but also the chesapeake or places like virginia and maryland so we'll go and put uh or actually no let's do this southern english colonies so while we can broadly say that there were impacts that colonizations had not all colonial societies were created equal so for example in new spain for the most part uh classes were separated into primarily we'll say four different categories four different categories uh and for the spanish what was instrumental really was bloodline and that was how much spanish blood does one have so for example those who are at the very top of spanish society those that held the most economic power those that were legally favored in the law those that had political positions they were almost entirely full-blooded spanish so we might say we'll say full blooded spanish all right at the very top and generally speaking we're also the fewest in numbers so you know the area of this pyramid would be the smallest out of everything then you had a class that was had some spanish blood you know maybe one of their parents was spanish maybe their other parent was either native american or african uh you know we refer to these at least in some cases as mestizos right mixed blood we might say here mixed and then those that had the least in terms of the law favoring them we might say native americans and then maybe at the very bottom african slaves right so in this case blood was very important however when we look at plantation economies like those located in the caribbean the southern english colonies it was also about blood but more importantly more about race and especially in places like virginia where you know laws were created to treat whites and blacks differently um the social system that was created was based off of this system so at the very top we might have those you know the whites but the rich whites the land owning whites right land owning whites the next we might have uh poor whites and again despite the fact that poor whites may lack the economic resources they do have their racial category that gives them special privileges in those particular societies we may have a very very very small segment right not often seen depending on what societies there might be a very small free african population although free blacks may have more money than the free whites according to the law and the social systems they are not privileged in the same way and then at the very bottom very very large in number right very large in number would be enslaved africans generally in these plantation economies there it tends not to be a very large native population this has more to do with the fact that they're oriented more towards money rather than something like conversion in the case of new spain recall that for the spanish native americans were seen as potential catholics and integrated into spanish society especially in the english colonies native americans are mostly um you know sought are viewed as being different viewed as being savages viewed as being non-christian and really they're to be expelled rather than converted and integrated and so there's not there doesn't tend to be a large native american class in english colonies or in the caribbean colonies of um of sugar plantations so that's just sort of one important thing to take note of is that yes while we can make broad generalizations about the impact of colonization not all societies or colonial societies are created equally and of course there are varying degrees of how colonial societies are are set up so for example you could also make a social pyramid of the new england colonies for england and um they would be different uh there wouldn't be no um enslaved population it would be almost exclusively english and there would be other criteria by which that society would be organized maybe religious powder power maybe education level uh maybe wealth things like that one thing that is true about pretty much all colonial societies was the development of slavery uh in the caribbean and in the you know the english the french the dutch spanish all practice some version of african slavery for the english the royal african company this is an english company began importing slaves from africa in the late 1600s and on to the 1700s and the 1800s they were given a monopoly by the english government a monopoly is the right to no competition in other words when it came to the slave trade the royal african company of england there was no other english company that could legally engage in the slave trade now the english had to compete with the dutch and the portuguese and the spanish but they didn't have to have any domestic competition right right to no competition maybe we'll say domestically and for the most part when we refer to or talk about the development of the african and atlantic slave trade in the 1500s it was portugal you know portugal was really the first country to begin establishing trading posts in western africa and brought the first african slaves in the 1600s the dutch who became really the commercial leaders of the world and joint stock companies like the dutch west india company brought over slaves by the 1700s it's really the english that wrestle away control from the dutch and so especially during the later years of the african slave trade the mid 1700s late 1700s early 1800s it's mostly the english that are the primary facilitators of that slave trade now one thing that happened or or you know changed in the institution of slavery when it was brought to the new world were the types of people who were slaves and the conditions of slavery now there are two sort of things that we uh have already established one was that slavery in the new world was what we call chattel slavery which means that people were property and that when slavery arrived in the new world it was based off of race it was racialized blackness was associated with slavery not just you know culturally and socially but in fact legally especially in the english colonies but another way that slavery changed was that in africa slavery was typically the or people who were enslaved were typically war captives criminals or people that owed money and so it was very common in western africa for various tribes and chiefs to go to war with each other for the specific purposes of capturing people and selling them to europeans where they could then get guns and this turned into some you know sort of like a vicious cycle right so we might think that the acquisition of more slaves led to more guns and more guns led to more slaves and more slaves led to more guns and so this vicious cycle sort of fed in to this larger system of atlantic slavery but when slaves were traded then to europeans in addition to the changes made in viewing those people as property and in addition to those systems being based off race in the new world it also changed in two other ways one was that it went from a temporary condition to a permanent condition it wasn't always permanent in africa and that it went from a non-heritable meaning that heritable or heritability is passed on from one generation to another one is that it did go to a heritable condition and in most at least english colonies it was the mother so it was if the mother was a slave then the child would become a slave and again that was a major difference as well another difference right we're going to label five differences here was just the sheer number that between 1501 and 1830 an estimated 4 million people were brought from africa into the new world this was far more the scale was far larger than um really slavery had been practiced up until that point at least in africa at that particular time so we might also say that the sheer number of slaves the number was much much we'll just say much bigger and one of the reasons for that was because slavery in africa was mostly done as a sort of local servant type of level in the new world it was specifically for cash crops it was to provide labor for crops that could be exported to be consumed not just at a very local level but to be sold overseas in places like europe and even you know sold really around the world and so the need for labor the need for slaves was more or less unlimited because the more cash crops that could be produced in the form of things like tobacco and sugar the more profit that these companies could make and these commodities like tobacco and sugar were high in demand you know people really could not consume enough of these things and so again in terms of what are the differences or what sort of changes to slavery is felt in the new world we want to take note of number one chattel slavery number two race-based slavery number three permanent slavery number four slavery as a heritable condition and number five just the sheer scale and number of people who were enslaved following the development of atlantic slavery a good term to be familiar with the middle passage the middle passage is described in your book as the hellish and hellish is a good term uh trip from africa to the new world or to the americas in fact it was so hellish that it's estimated that maybe anywhere between 15 or 25 percent of slaves died even before reaching the new world and that's not to account for the hellish conditions that awaited them mostly on sugar plantations in the caribbean slaves or slaves resisted at every single avenue of the slave trade when arriving in the new world some escaped slaves established maroon communities a maroon community is a community created by escaped slaves so runaway slaves who then went up to the more rural parts of the colonies and established towns and communities and you know uh existed outside of the system they were relatively small in number but certainly did exist especially in the colonies maybe not maroon communities per se but runaway slaves or escaped slaves and the english colonies had a lot of territory or land to go to whereas in the caribbean it was a little bit more difficult but maroon communities certainly existed in those caribbean and plantation economies now another big impact is the way in which native americans lived when europeans arrived it fundamentally changed some aspects of indian life uh probably a good example is the arrival of european goods things like textiles metals like iron which were not available in the new world before europeans so weapons that were made or tools that were made out of rock or wood or you know stone of that sorts or clay were replaced with metal some metal silverware metal weapons metal tools uh and also muskets right if you're not familiar a musket is a gun and those guns allow native americans to hunt more effectively but also go to war more effectively things like textiles you can see an image here there's a native american man who is showing you some of the textiles or tools that were used by europeans one consequence of this was to change the way that native american economies work so for example wampum these are native american beads they're they could be used as jewelry or money that with the introduction of something like iron it led to more or increased production of these things so native americans adopted european goods pretty quickly especially when you look at their interactions with groups like the french and the dutch in which they gave things like furs and in return received european goods we could also say that something like the uh you know christianity was also something that was introduced to native americans you know especially in the spanish and french colonies uh but european goods is a good example of the way that uh indians lives changed after colonization but this is also true for example of europeans as well and you know a good example we'll just kind of move down here real quick is the introduction of new crops of the new world like tobacco and chocolate you know those things were not in europe or really in the old world at the time these were only plants that grew in the americas and europeans whereas they didn't smoke tobacco before you know adopted things like tobacco and it became associated with a you know european way of life other impacts included changes to the environment in the previous section we had talked about the beaver wars and how really tribes like the algonquian and the iroquois competed over natural resources like the beaver in an effort to try to accumulate and acquire more european goods uh and this had a consequence of over hunting i mean you know in many places the beaver went extinct now you know instead of utilizing resources like beaver and other animals to just hunt what you need it was this arms race of trying to hunt more and more and more just simply for the accumulation of goods another thing that europeans brought or another impact that europeans had on the environment was private property you know specifically the setting up of things like fences you know this made certain parts of the new world unavailable to tribes and indigenous people whereas that wasn't the case before and really this could lead to a lot of conflict you know especially in the colonies that sought land this was especially true of the english colonies to a lesser degree the front noses english colonies especially because the english colonists were there for land whereas you know with the french they weren't really there for the land and so you had less conflict for example over land with the french than you did perhaps with groups like the dutch and the english this was something that this concept of private property was introduced to the new world by europeans the most consequential by far though is the introduction of disease which absolutely decimated the native popu population about 75 percent of all the people of the new world died and this was one of the ways we talked about earlier that um you know native american uh or the the pathway of european conquest was really paved by disease we had talked about this in the context of the colombian exchange earlier and that is certainly something that you want to be familiar with the biological exchange between the old world and the new we'd also mentioned the mourning wars right wars conducted by native tribes to essentially replenish right kidnapping people from rival tribes to replenish populations because they were so decimated by disease and lastly we could talk about the cultivation of various plants and the type of impact that it was brought right we talked about how tobacco and chocolate these were new to the to the old world or europe right not been introduced before uh sugar right this was something that went from old to new and certainly created a whole new sort of economy and lifestyle right for people in the old world this was grown in the new world and then exported but also new medicines right there were all sorts of new plants and europeans and others really tried to experiment with some of these new plants and discovering new medicinal [Music] medicinal purposes there were plants in the new world that native americans had used historically there were plants that were discovered by africans but this was we might just say you know new medicines became available because of some of the new plant life that was discovered in the in the new world