Period 1 Native American Timeline American Colonies
The Spanish colonial effort was funded by an economic system called Mercantilism.
Encomienda System
The encomienda system was a system where encomenderos were granted land in the New World, along with the Native Americans inhabiting that land. These Native Americans then became a forced labor for farming and/or mining.
The monarchs of Spain issued a legal document called the Requerimiento, wherein the Pope gave the monarchs of Spain the power to claim land in the New World and convert anyone they found there. The priests sent to the New World for the conversion requested protection from the crown. Thus, all the Native Americans that accepted Catholicism received the protection, while those that rejected Catholicism forfeited the protection. (However, some Native Americans that did convert were subjected to slave labor anyways)
Flaws of the Encomienda System
- The Native American slave force kept dying out due to diseases from the Old World.
- The Natives knew the land better, and escaped often.
African Slave Labor
The use of African Slave Labor would solve both flaws of the Encomienda System with Native Americans.
Refined Encomienda System
By the late 16th century, the Spanish completely changed the Americas. The influx of wealth went back to Spain, stuffing the pockets of the nobles.
Caste System
At this point, the Spanish Empire in the Americas consisted of 3 distinct groups:
- The Spanish
- The Africans
- The Native Americans
The Spanish enforced a new social order, a Caste System. This was so the Spanish government could impose taxes. With the social ordering from the Caste System, the Spanish govt. could impose taxes on those at the bottom.
The Caste System was based on racial ancestry. The lower you were in the Caste System determined how much higher your taxes were. The Caste System was ordered like this
- Peninsulares - Those born in Spain
- Criollos - Spanish born in the Americans
- Mestizos - Spanish and Native American ancestry
- Mulattoes - Spanish and African ancestry
- Africans
- Native Americans
