hi everyone welcome back today we'll be looking at a period in the colonial history of the americas that scholars refer to as the spanish century the medieval european world was in many ways one ruled by superstition christians of the middle ages lived in societies where it was believed that god and the devil took an active hand in the affairs of men and women locked in a perpetual struggle for human souls this is a famous painting of columbus's discovery of the new world by the surrealist painter salvador dali it makes the point of just how superstitious the world of 1492 remained columbus is portrayed by dolly in the bloom of youth stepping ashore with his ship behind him but the most prominent and striking image in the painting marking the moment unmistakably is the cross so many that some critics have said only half jokingly that a person could earn a phd by correctly guessing the exact number dolly surrounds the moment of new world discovery and a blinding aura of christian mysticism people still even in columbus's day believed that demons were real not imaginary things capable of actively taking possession not just of individuals but sometimes entire nations the reality of god's struggle versus the devil was a fact of european christians everyday lives in a way that most of us can no longer relate to but in 1492 these views were very much alive and not surprisingly they shaped europeans view of the place they came to call the new world of the americas this is the first known color image of satan and european art it comes from a massive work known as the codex gigas which is just latin for big ass book but it was more commonly known as the devil's bible we have all the well-recognized features the horns the reptilian face and forked tongue and the clawed hands and hooved feet making the devil appear ready to leap off the page and attack the reader the tome dates to the 1300s here we have a broader view that shows the immense size of the work many thousands of pages all in the same script and believed today by experts to be the work of a hermit monk over many many decades the myth surrounding the tome in the middle ages was that it was the work of a cursed priest who facing death for some unknown sin reportedly composed it in a single night after making a deal with the devil who granted him the knowledge and power to achieve the impossible task it contains the entire holy bible along with a mind-numbing array of spells and incantations claiming to hold all of the world's religious and supernatural knowledge within its pages despite the moniker devil's bible what the author clearly intended to represent with the vivid depiction of satan was not some sort of homage to the devil instead this broader image of the book shows the intent on the opposite page right at the heart of the work stands not just satan but a magnificent depiction of the kingdom of heaven what the author communicated was the everlasting and eternal struggle between good and evil between god and the devil that lay at the core of christian theology from the crusades to retake jerusalem to the reconquista and the expulsion of the islamic moors from the iberian peninsula europeans by the time of columbus's voyages were long familiar with the concept of holy war and for the overwhelming majority of spaniards and later frenchmen dutch and englishmen the native peoples of the new world would become like the moors as they characterized them minions of the devil who could justifiably be conquered enslaved and destroyed as enemies of their christian god when the spanish realized in the wake of columbus and successive voyages by other explorers that they had found a part of the globe totally unknown to them the immediate reaction of religious authorities was overwhelming excitement as well as trepidation the fear came from their realization that these two massive continents across the ocean must have been claimed by satan long ago as his personal kingdom on earth what else could they think of lands where any knowledge of christ's existence or even yahweh or allah was non-existent their excitement stemmed from the same reality the warrior priests of spain veterans of both the crusades and the reconquista saw an even greater quest in front of them for what mission could possibly bring them greater fame as christian heroes than conquering satan's empire in this new world and the conversion of two continents worth of souls for their god spanish colonization of the new lands was viewed as a continuation of the perpetual struggle between god and the forces of the devil the americas came to be imagined by the spanish and later european colonizers either as a false paradise or as a wilderness that needed to be transformed into a garden by christian heroes the spanish viewed themselves as crusaders engaged in an expansionist campaign of reconquista first against the moors and later the native peoples of the new world colonization was perceived as a very real effort to literally expel demons from the land to claim this new world and do their part in advancing god's aims in his ongoing epic struggle against his ancient adversary satan protestants especially the english first found satan in the americas among the spaniards not the native peoples this critical view of the spanish conquistadors as perpetrators of demonic atrocities in places like mexico were based originally on the writings of a spanish friar who we see in this artist's interpretation bartolome de las casas he was an eyewitness to hernan cortez's sacking of tenochtitlan the capital of the aztec empire protestants referred to this story of spanish atrocities against native peoples as the black legend the idea is vividly captured in this sketch the conquistador is a sinister figure on his war horse threatening death and destruction but the priests in the image literally have the heads of beasts of demons the satanic epic was a literary tradition that first evolved in spanish america it lionized spanish colonization as a battle that pitted catholic heroes against the devil's minions native peoples like the aztecs and incas although the trope of the satanic epic was quickly adopted all over europe protestants first organized their epic narratives around the black legend and battles that pitted protestant heroes against satanic spaniards but by the time of the arrival of the puritans in new england in the 1620s and 1630s the english also had begun to see the natives and not the spanish as the main minions of the devil in the new world that this shift in perspective and emphasis occurred just when the english had their first encounters with real rather than imaginary indians who were no more interested in the protestant variety of christianity than the aztecs and incas were and spanish catholicism was no coincidence when europeans witnessed firsthand the impact of disease epidemics on native peoples whether catholic or protestant they frequently attributed the suffering and the death to the hand of god their christian god had literally struck down these children of the devil to pave the way for the success of his so-called chosen people when hernan cortes saw how disease had ravaged the great city of tenochtitlan he counted it a blessing from god as did francisco pizarro upon observing the epidemics that annihilated the incas in peru when the puritans arrived in new england they came upon well-constructed villages littered with the dead bodies of native peoples and like the conquistadors before them declared that it was divine intervention the hand of their god clearing the way for his ultimate victory over satan and the new world disease was by far the most significant and devastating part of what scholars call the colombian exchange it's a term used to describe basically everything that moved back and forth between the old world of europe and africa and the new world of the americas as this map indicates beyond the horrifying sicknesses the colombian exchange also included things like crops plants and animals that would completely alter the destinies of both the old world and the new the population of europe began to increase dramatically in the years after columbus in 1492 this was primarily due to an improvement in diet thanks to the adoption of new food crops that were first cultivated in the americas things like cassava maize or corn and potatoes all surpassed an average yield of calories the main european crops of wheat barley and oats by introducing these new world crops to the old world the colonizers seriously expanded the food supply and their population the post-1492 exchange of new and old world microbes and plants provided a double boon to europeans first they obtained an expanded food supply that permitted their reproduction at an unprecedented rate second they acquired access to fertile and extensive new lands largely emptied of native peoples by the exported diseases in effect the post-colombian exchange depleted people on the american side of the atlantic while swelling those on the european and african shores eventually the surplus population flowed westward to refill the demographic vacuum created on the american side of the atlantic world the colonizers brought along with them plants and animals new to the americas some by design and others by accident determined to farm in a european manner the colonists introduced their domesticated livestock including pigs horses sheep and cattle to the new world environments they arrived in they also inadvertently carried with them pathogens weeds and rats these unwanted imports spread rapidly and voraciously through the american landscape to the detriment of native plants animals and peoples the settlers both spanish and later english french and dutch allowed their livestock to roam freely in the hinterlands foraging for wild plants ranging cattle and pigs wreaked havoc on an american environment that the indians depended upon the pigs and cattle invaded native crop fields to consume the maize beans and squash surpluses and staples of native diets the european invasion affected an ecological revolution an abrupt break with the interplay of nature and humanity that had previously characterized life in the americas the europeans and their imports placed new and unprecedented demands upon the american environment by a mix of design and accident the newcomers triggered a cascade of processes that alienated the land from its indigenous peoples although the demographic disaster and ecological imperialism undermined the indians ability to defend their lands and autonomy they remain sufficiently numerous and resourceful to hinder and sometimes obstruct the colonial enterprise even though they were diminished in numbers and traumatized by disasters native peoples were incredibly resilient and resourceful in adapting to the challenging new circumstances that they faced on the great plains of north america during the 18th century as this painting shows indians acquired large herds of horses that endowed them with a new mobility and prestige as buffalo hunters and mounted warriors better fed clothed and equipped than ever before the mounted indians could defy colonial intrusions and sometimes even roll back colonial settlements along the margins of the great plains similarly the navajo people of the american southwest became newly rich by appropriating european sheep and looms to their own ends producing distinctive and beautiful wool cloth here we have some examples a couple of navajo textiles here we have a navajo rug runner and this image which shows the navajo craft of knitting and a navajo woman wearing traditional clothing because of their resilience indians became indispensable to the european contenders for empire in the americas on their contested frontiers each empire desperately needed indians as trading partners as guides as religious converts and as military allies by the late 17th century the imperial contests between european powers in the new world were mostly conflicts that revolved around building up networks of indian allies and breaking up those of rival european powers indian relations were pivotal to the development of every colonial region the spanish crown divided its american empire into two immense administrative regions known as vice royalties each governed by a viceroy appointed by the king in the mid 16th century the vice royalty of new spain which we see on this map consisted of mexico central america and the caribbean islands while the vice royalty of peru which we have here included all of south america except portuguese brazil at its core and central mexico and peru the spanish empire was phenomenally rich especially in the mining of precious metals between 1500 and 1650 the spanish shipped from the americas to europe about 181 tons of gold and 16 000 tons of silver mined by the native peoples they subjugated and later by the african slaves they imported here we see the remains of a couple of silver mines the first here from mexico and this one less well preserved but still there in peru the acquisition of so much gold and especially silver rescued the spanish and by extension all of europe from their previous imbalance of trade with asia enabling the purchase of unprecedented quantities of far eastern cloth and spices but the gold and especially the silver sent homeward proved to be a mixed blessing the infusion expanded the money supply faster than the growth of goods and services contributing to a dramatic inflation of prices that spilled over into the rest of europe the american silver made spain rich but it also worsened the already hard lot of peasants and laborers who together made up most of the population still their fate paled in comparison to that of native peoples in the americas who were forced to work in the silver mines they died in numbers so large that similar to the guanc on the sugar islands of the canaries and the taino of hispaniola the spanish were forced to turn to africa and the mass importation of slaves to keep their mining and plantation operations functioning during the 16th century the spanish and other european colonizers had expected to live as economic parasites on the labor of indians but the epidemics upset this strategy with large tracts of fertile but depopulated lands the colonies cast about for a new source of cheap and exploitable labor that was less susceptible to disease beginning in 1518 to hispaniola the colonizers imported growing numbers of slaves from west africa here we see a map that indicates the slaves brought to the americas over all the hundreds of years of the traffic the larger the bubble the bigger the numbers prior to 1820 at least two-thirds of the 12 million immigrants from the old world to the new were enslaved africans rather than free europeans most of the enslaved were put to work on tropical or subtropical plantations raising cash crops primarily sugar but also things like rice indigo tobacco cotton and coffee for the european market by the outset of the 18th century in 1700 people of african descent prevailed in the american tropics especially around the caribbean we might be surprised to see from looking at the map here how small the numbers of slaves brought to north america were in comparison to the massive numbers brought into south america and the caribbean we know that by the 19th century the slave population of the united states stood in the millions so how exactly did it grow so large unlike in the sugar islands of the west indies where profits were so immense planters could afford to literally work people to death and simply keep importing more and more which is exactly what they did slave owners in the north american colonies grew crops that while allowing them to get rich over time did not permit for the levels of exploitation reached in the sugarcane fields of the caribbean because the labor and exploitation involved in tobacco and rice production was not as lethal slaves were able to reproduce and form families slaveholders in north america while no doubt just as ruthless in many ways as their caribbean counterparts depended upon the natural increase of the slave population for the growth of both their labor supply and their profits what historians call the middle passage across the atlantic from africa to destinations in the new world remains perhaps the most horrific crime ever committed by humans against their own kind this sketch from a slave ship captain's records shows how people were packed into the vessels like sardines in a can when slaves refused to eat on board the ships cruel mechanical devices were used to pry their mouths open brought up onto the deck for exercise once a day not a few slaves got loose and dove overboard to their deaths preferring death by drowning or shark to what they feared awaited them at the end of their hellish journey this led to many ships being equipped with large netting along the sides to prevent the ship captains human commodities from being able to escape this daguerreotype photograph from a captured slave ship in the 1880s shows rescued africans on deck and it gives a real impression of just how many people were moved on these vessels for hundreds of years as part of what was called the atlantic slave trade the 16th century rulers of spain felt entrusted with a divine mission to convert and to command the peoples of the world these convictions rendered spanish policy uncompromising especially during the long reign of king philip ii who ruled from 1556 all the way to 1598. quite the snappy dresser as we can see in this painting of him philip was a devout and rigid catholic who regarded protestantism as a rank heresy and one he intended to destroy emboldened by the easy annihilation of indian empires philip treated european opponents with contempt he frequently referred to england's queen elizabeth the first who we see in this painting as that protestant this attitude understandably alarmed other europeans who read with grim interest the lurid accounts of spanish atrocities in the new world their alarm grew in 1580 and 81 when spanish power seemed to make another quantum leap as philip completed the unification of the iberian peninsula by adding portugal to his realm the union also combined the far-flung and wealthy portuguese colonies with the already immense spanish empire those colonial acquisitions included the atlantic islands of the azores and madeiras the wealthy sugar colony of brazil and south america and lucrative entrepos on the coasts of africa india and the east indies all sources of valuable spices and slaves without their own share in the overseas riches other europeans dreaded that they would fall under spanish dominion before long just like portugal had the quickest way to obtain american wealth was to steal it on the high seas after the spanish had conveniently mined and packaged the gold and silver and loaded it onto ships lacking substantial navies at this point the dutch english and french encouraged private investors to send armed ships to attack and plunder the spanish shipping in 1523 much of the gold stolen by cortez from the aztecs and sent homeward to spain was re-stolen by french pirates in the atlantic in response the spanish organized a grand annual convoy of 60 to 70 large ships protected by a royal fleet during the 1580s and 1590s the english succeeded the french as the leading predators upon spanish gold and silver shipments the greatest english mariner and pirate of the time francis drake captured in this artist's interpretation ravaged the spanish caribbean coast in these years his exploits endeared him to queen elizabeth who took a cut of his prophets and rewarded him with the knighthood so he would be known thereafter to history as sir francis drake his patron sir walter raleigh said that drake was more than a pirate because of the immense scale of his theft as raleigh noted did you ever know of any that were pirates for millions only they that risk for small things for pirates by 1588 english acts of piracy and aid to protestant rebels in the netherlands had so infuriated king philip that he made a fateful decision he sent an armada of warships to try and seize control of the english channel as the precursor to a land invasion by spanish troops he had posted in the netherlands the spanish armada of 1588 as it came to be known consisted of 130 warships carrying 2 431 cannon and some 22 000 sailors and soldiers the english warships tasked with meeting the invasion were fewer in number and smaller but they had the advantage of speed and maneuverability and their ships possessed longer range cannon they held off and ultimately broke up the armada but that was not the worst of it for philip while in a disgraceful retreat the spanish ships were battered by storms in the north sea and irish sea that destroyed or crippled almost all of them here we have an artist's interpretation of the spanish armada the debacle saved england from invasion and severely wounded spanish prestige it also emboldened the english to escalate their acts of piracy on the high seas unable to invade england as a result of effectively losing its navy spain suddenly had to settle for bolstering its defenses in the new world by constructing immense and expensive stone fortifications to guard major seaports in places like st augustine florida which we see in this overhead photo in the wake of the spanish armada the english french and dutch stepped up their attempts to construct their own empires in the americas the rival nations gradually recognized that raiding and piracy was only a hit or miss means of obtaining the benefits of overseas empire to tap into a more regular and predictable flow of wealth they needed their own colonies where they might harvest precious minerals and tropical and semi-tropical crops such as sugar they began searching for places in the new world to start their own plantations there's just one more thing to discuss about the spanish before we leave them for a while in our narrative and that is to dig a little deeper on how they interacted with indian peoples for example the pueblo of new mexico the franciscan missionaries who came to the region in the early 17th century enjoyed what appeared to be remarkable success because the pueblo as we can see from this photograph lived in permanent compact horticultural villages it was easy to establish a mission simply by adding a small church a priest or two and a few soldiers the franciscan priests filled these new churches with thousands of converts here we have a couple of examples of the spanish mission churches the first one is just ruins but in the next one we have a much more elaborate and well-preserved structure that remains standing today the success of the missionaries was most remarkable because of how much the franciscans demanded of the pueblos christian churches obliterated and replaced circular kivas sacred structures for religious dances and ceremonies like we see in the next couple of photographs we have here the spanish priests smashed burned or confiscated the katsina images sacred to the indians deeming them idols offensive to the true god here we have a couple of examples of pueblo cuts and adults that the franciscans found so offensive in addition to mastering christianity the pueblo were supposed to dress cook eat walk and talk like spaniards for the friars deemed everything traditionally native to be savage and pagan god demanded chastity before and monogamy within marriage to promote a new sense of shame and modesty the new mexico franciscans ordered pueblo women to cover themselves with cloth from their necks to their ankles backsliding or resistant converts suffered whipping with the lash sometimes followed by a smearing dose of burning turpentine over the bloody back which often proved fatal although the franciscans were demanding and punitive most pueblo peoples decided that it was best to receive and heed them but why exactly in part the pueblo acted from fear of the spanish soldiers who backed up the priests with their firearms dogs horses whips and gallows many pueblo hoped that a military alliance with the spanish would protect them from the nomadic warrior bands like the apaches and the ute who frequently raided pueblo villages from the mountains and great plains the pueblo peoples also saw material advantages in a relationship with the spanish and their priests they introduced appealing new crops including watermelons grapes apples and wheat and metal tools superior to the traditional stone implements of the indians given the overwhelming power of the spanish and their impressive material culture many pueblo thought it best to mollify the invaders and gain some of their advantages the pueblo especially longed to co-opt the supernatural powers exercised by the priests exceptional men the franciscans were true believers who made extraordinary sacrifices and endured severe hardships here we have an artist's sketch of an early 17th century spanish franciscan priest seeking pain as a test of faith many missionaries wore hair shirts in the desert walked barefoot over a stony landscape and periodically bloodied their own backs with sharp sticks the friars also stood out among the other spanish because they rarely raped indian women and proverb preferred their vow of poverty to the accumulation of gold also no matter how successful in getting a church built or hundreds baptized every franciscan priest lived in the shadow of a violent death if epidemics increased natives who'd seem docile could conclude that priests were dangerous sorcerers who had to be killed of the approximately 100 franciscans who served in new mexico in the 17th century 40 died as martyrs to their faith although the missionaries spread their message through and among the pueblo peoples with remarkable speed conversions were rarely as complete and irreversible as the priests initially believed there was a fundamental misunderstanding between the friars and the pueblo a misunderstanding characteristic of every european missionary venture in north america the pueblo peoples were willing to add christian beliefs and practices as they understood them to their own supernatural traditions natives had long adopted and augmented their spiritual repertoire provided that the additions did not challenge their overall framework in which supernatural power was regarded as diverse and woven into their natural world the franciscans erroneously believed that their pueblo converts had forsaken their pagan ways once and for all without compromise in fact most pueblo compartmentalized their beliefs old and new they accepted features of spanish culture and the catholic faith that they found useful or unavoidable while covertly maintaining their traditional spiritual beliefs during the late 1660s and 1670s a prolonged drought repeatedly undercut harvests reducing many pueblo people to starvation lacking surplus produce to trade they also suffered from increasing raids by nomads the related ravages of drought and raiders rendered more oppressive the persistent spanish demands for indian tribute in labor and produce exactions that could be tolerated in good years became intolerable in hard times especially because the spanish refused to reduce their demands for tribute to reflect the diminished means and shrinking numbers of the pueblo afflicted by disease famine and violence the pueblo population fell from 40 000 in 1638 to 17 000 by 1680. nonetheless the pueblo remained collectively responsible for the same level of tribute so the amount of maize and blankets that every indian had to pay more than doubled by 1675 it had become abundantly clear that the christian god could not protect them from epidemic diseases drought and nomadic raiders much less from exploitation by the spanish that same year led by their shamans the pueblo peoples began to openly revive their traditional ceremonies hoping to restore the disrupted balance of their world the revival terrified the franciscans the colonists and the governor in 1675 the spanish arrested and whipped 47 pueblo shamans on charges of sorcery three of the prisoners suffered death by hanging and a fourth committed suicide while in custody the colonial governor of new mexico meant to export and sell the other 43 as slaves but backed off when confronted and threatened by a large and enraged force of pueblo warriors in two ways the episode prepared them for a massive rebellion the brutal persecution taught the pueblo that the spanish would never permit an open revival of the ancient ways that they needed to restore their collapsing universe further having intimidated the governor the pueblo saw for the first time their potential to overcome their oppressors pueblo leaders started planning a major revolt the chief organizer and planner a shaman named pope had been whipped in the witch hunt of 1675. he traveled from one village to the next preaching that the pueblo could recover their health dignity prosperity and freedom by destroying the christians and their churches developing extensive contacts from village to village pope cultivated a large and growing following dedicated to his message of native revival especially appealing to men outraged at the franciscan attack on polygamy pope promised each warrior a new wife for every spaniard he killed in august 1680 in an event captured in this artist's imagination most of the seventeen thousand pueblo people rose up in a well-coordinated rebellion involving more than two dozen towns scattered over several hundred miles all newly united by shared hardships and oppressions and pope's promise of a return to native ways the rebels destroyed and plundered missions farms and ranches procuring horses and guns venting their rage at 80 years of exploitation the pueblos took special pains to desecrate churches to smash altars crosses and christian images and to mutilate the corpses of priests the uprising killed about 200 of the 1 000 colonists in new mexico including 21 of the 40 priests in just a few weeks the pueblo rebels had destroyed eight decades of colonial work to create spanish new mexico the pueblo revolt of 1680 as it came to be known was the greatest setback that natives ever inflicted on european expansion in north america unfortunately for the pueblo the rebellion began to falter almost as soon as it triumphed deprived by their victory of any remaining common enemy the pueblo peoples revived their traditional feuds falling out both within villages and between them in 1691 the beleaguered spanish refugees at el paso rallied under the leadership of a new governor diego de vargas an ambitious resourceful and selectively ruthless spanish nobleman exploiting divisions and war worriness among the pueblo he reclaimed new mexico in 1692 and 93. in 1696 he suppressed a renewed but much smaller rebellion that killed five priests and 21 colonists and soldiers but to the west the zuni and hopi pueblos successfully defied the governor and secured their de facto independence which provided a refuge for pueblo militants fleeing from spanish rule in the rio grande valley the pueblo peoples of the rio grande never again mounted a major revolt against spanish rule bloody and destructive to the pueblo as well as the spanish the rebellions of 1680 and the smaller one in 1696 taught both sides to compromise the pueblo peoples accepted spanish persistence and authority while the spanish themselves used greater restraint the governor ended the practice of extorting pueblo labor and demanding tributes while the returning franciscans also lowered their expectations now tolerating as harmless many pueblo ceremonies that they'd previously suppressed as heathen okay so that gets us through the spanish century next time we'll focus on the french and dutch colonial experiences in north america