the earth and its peoples 3 rd edition chapter 18 the diversity of american colonial societies,...

The Earth and Its Peoples

3rd edition

Chapter 18

The Diversity of American Colonial

Societies,1530-1770

Cover Slide

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Columbian ExchangeThe term Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer of peoples, animals, plants, and diseases between the New and Old Worlds. After the Spanish conquest, the introduction of plants and animals from the Old World dramatically altered the American environment. Here an Amerindian woman is seen milking a cow. Livestock sometimes destroyed the fields of native peoples, but cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats also provided food, leather, and wool. (Photo: Imaging Services, Harvard College Library)

Columbian Exchange


Forming Mexican PeoplesThis painting by an unknown eighteenth-century Mexican artist presents a naive but sympathetic view of interracial unions and marriages in colonial Mexico. On the left, the union of a Spanish man and a native American woman has produced a racially mixed mestizo. The handsome group on the right features a mestizo woman and a Spaniard with their little daughter. (Private Collection)

Forming Mexican Peoples


Indian bartering furs for flintlockIn this illustration by C.W. Jefferys (1869-1951), an Indian barters furs for a flintlock at an eighteenth-century Canadian trading post. The beaver had drawn adventurers to the shores of Hudson Bay in the first place, and the prices of all goods traded by the Hudson Bay Company were in "made" beaver--one good quality pelt from an adult animal. In 1733, Company records from Albany Fort stated that a single made beaver pelt could be traded for a brass kettle, 2 pounds of Brazil tobacco, or twenty steel fish-hooks. (National Archives of Canada)

Indian bartering furs for flintlock


Indians harvesting wheatBetween 1500 to 1800, Europe underwent a population explosion, solved partly by immigration to the Americas. The transfer of Old World animals and foods enhanced the Americas' ability to feed their growing population. Sixteenth-century Spaniards introduced wheat into Latin America, where it competed with the native corn and manioc. (Institut Amatller d’Art Hispanic)

Indians harvesting wheat


Las Casas and Crusade for JusticeBartolome de las Casas (1474-1566)--a Dominican missionary and eventually bishop of Chiapas in southern Mexico--passionately condemned the violence and brutality of the Spanish conquests. His criticisms were published widely and accompanied by woodcuts such as this one showing the cruelty of the conquerors. In response to Las Casas, Charles V passed laws protecting the rights of the indigenous peoples. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University)

Las Casas and Crusade for Justice


Silver refinery at Potosi, BoliviaThe silver refineries of Spanish America were among the largest industrial establishments in the Western Hemisphere during the colonial period. By the middle of the seventeenth century the mines of Potosi, Bolivia, had attracted a population of more than 120,000. This illustration shows a typical refinery (ingenio). Aqueducts carried water to the refineries. The water wheel shown on the right drove two sets of vertical stamps that crushed ore. Crushed ore was sorted, dried, and mixed with mercury and other catalysts to extract the silver. The amalgam was then separated by a combination of washing and heating. The end result was a nearly pure ingot of silver. (From Alan K. Craig and Robert C. West (eds), In Quest of Mineral Wealth: Aboriginal and Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in Spanish America, vol. 33 of Geoscience and Man, 1994. Courtesy, Geoscience Publications)

Silver refinery at Potosi, Bolivia


Tobacco factory machinery, MexicoAs part of the Columbian Exchange, the New World introduced to the Old plants that provided dyes, medicinal plants, varieties of cotton, and tobacco. This illustration shows a tobacco factory in eighteenth-century Mexico City using a horse-driven mechanical shredder to produce snuff and cigarette tobacco. (Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires)

Tobacco factory machinery, Mexico


Map: European Claims in North America, 1755-1763

European Claims in North America, 1755-1763The results of the French and Indian War dramatically altered the map of North America. France's losses precipitated conflicts between Amerindian peoples and the rapidly expanding population of the British colonies. (Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.)


Map: The Inca Empire, 1463-1532

The Inca Empire, 1463-1532South America, which extends 4,750 miles in length and 3,300 miles from east to west at its widest point, contains every climatic zone and probably the richest variety of vegetation on earth. Roads built by the Incas linked most of the Andean region. (Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.)


the earth and its peoples 3 rd edition chapter 18 the diversity of american colonial societies,...

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