Negotiations of Empire

Bureaucratic stuff

GhanaBooks / discussion Brown Bag seriesH-Atlantic

“in observing America, Europe was in the first instance observing itself.”

Sir John ElliottColumbus was involved in “the

production of wonder.”Stephen Greenblatt

What did conquest mean?

Conquest equals the mastery of American space

Sir John Elliott: Empires of the Atlantic World

1) symbolic possession 2) physical occupation of the land 3) peopling of the land

Order and Hierarchy Tension about proper type of society that

should be established in the New World A) recreation of European societies in the

New World B) these societies to be put under the

control of European empires C) societies that actually developed in

the New World diverged from European practice

John Winthrop: “in all times, some must be rich, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in subjection”

A Modell of Christian Charity (1629)

Authority and the Periphery

Authority flowed not from the centre out towards the periphery but was constructed out of an ongoing series of negotiations, of reciprocal bargaining, between the centre and colonies

Result: conformity to traditional values of order, hierarchy but a willingness to break out of old values and subvert them

Wallerstein

Origin of "modern world-system" in 16th C Western Europe and the Americas

By 19th C virtually every area on earth was incorporated into the capitalist world-economy.

Not homogeneous in cultural, political, and economic terms

Characterized by fundamental differences in

Civilizational development Accumulation of political power and

capital.

Not mere residues or irregularities that can and will be overcome

A lasting division of the world in core, semi-periphery and periphery an inherent feature of the world-system

Core high level of technological development and manufactures complex products

Periphery raw materials, agricultural products and cheap labor for the expanding agents of the core.

core and periphery are not mutually exclusive and fixed

relative to each other and shifting

zone called 'semi-periphery’ acts as a periphery to the core, and a core to the periphery

Continuing co modification of things, including human labor Natural resources land Labor human relationships

being stripped of their "intrinsic" value and turned into commodities in a market which dictates their exchange value.

Spanish Conquests

Caribbean: model for later developments Crucial features: importance of gold and

mining Urban concentration of Spanish Development of encomienda system –

wealth in people rather than in land Conquest through conversion

Spanish expansion

Conquest spread from Hispaniola in two great arcs: one to Panama and one to Cuba and then Mexico

Conquest of Mexico 1519-21 Conquest of Peru 1532-33

Portuguese Encounters and Conquest

Beginnings of expansion 1415 Ceuta, in present day Morocco

Over fifteenth century, moved to Madeira islands, Cape Verde archipelago, Sao Tome and the Principe islands with forts in Morocco, Senegambia and gulf of Guinea

1487 Bartolomeu Dias crossed into Indian ocean

Portuguese expansion

1497-99 Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India 1500 Portuguese move into Brazil Reasons for going to Brazil -counter French colonization -find gold/silver as the Spanish had done in

Potosi -new sources of income to compensate for

declining returns from India

Portugal: slaves and sugar 1450-1530: shipped 156,000 Africans to Brazil, Atlantic islands and Spanish empire

Growth of sugar in late 16th

-1570: 60 engenhos (sugar mills) in Brazil

-1585: 120 engenhos -1612: 192 engenhos

“Without Angola, no

slaves; without slaves; no

sugar, without sugar, no Brazil.”

British Conquest

Jamestown Pirates Gold Tobacco

New England Religious persecution

FranceGeographic Diversity

Major areas of French Atlantic: Marseille, Nantes, Bordeaux and Paris French slaving posts from Senegambia to

Benin, especially Fort Saint Louis and Gorée New France plus Acadia and Terre-Neuve

(Newfoundland) Loisiana Caribbean-Saint Domingue, Martinique,

Guadaloupe and Cayenne

Population

French comparatively small in comparison to British in Americas

-70,000 went to Quebec; 7,000 to other parts of Canada

-300,000 to French Caribbean African: 1,118,000 to French Caribbean

including 800,000 to Saint Domingue

Why did so few French go to the Americas?

High chance of death Limited numbers fleeing religious

persecution Expanding economy in France Movement of peoples governed by the

policies of the French crown and highly centralised French colonial bureaucracy – the Marine

How much control did the French have over their empire?Strengths

Theoretically great tied into a largely

mercantilist set of policies and governed by a connected set of legal codes including the Code Noir

“policing the conduct of slaves,”

Network of admiralty courts and a set of legal traditions called the Coutume de Paris

Weaknesses French interior only

nominally under its control North America less control

than an “intercultural alliance” and “situation of interdependence”

“intercultural alliances” carried out by Jesuits missionaries and fur traders

not bureaucrats or soldiers

Differences between empires

Spain – neither a consolidated or a very well integrated state

Portugal – long a unified kingdom with centralising monarchs, John II and Manuel I

England – diverse set of ethnicities and a model of understatization

France – built upon the principle of incorporation. Large standing officialdom with a large standing army

Maintaining Rule – Spanish America

Spain was the European nation with the most effective control over their colonies

Discovery of silver and gold Spanish empire in America a medieval

construct – Edmundo O’Gorman: “Spanish colonisation is animated by a medieval spirit; whatever it contains that is modern is a blemish in it”

Maintaining Rule – British empire

More control in the peripheries Colonists’ insistence on enjoyment of all

English laws as English subjects Importance of negotiation and

government by consent Aim of government: emulation of French

and especially Spanish modes of colonial government