Read Online Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by John H. Elliott - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John H. Elliott
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enterprise of conquest. He had arrived in Hispaniola in the wake of his distant relative and fellow Extremaduran, Nicolas de Ovando, who had been appointed the royal governor of the island in 1501, with instructions to rescue it from the anarchy into which it had descended under the regime of the Columbus brothers, and to establish the colony on solid foundations.85 By the time Ovando left Hispaniola in 1509, seventeen towns had been established on the island, Indians had been allotted by distribution (repartimiento) to settlers who were charged with instructing them in Christian doctrine in return for the use of their labour, and cattle raising and sugar planting had begun to provide alternative sources of wealth to the island's rapidly diminishing supply of gold.
Cortes would have seen for himself something of the transformation of Hispaniola into a well-ordered and economically viable community, while at the same time his Caribbean experiences made him aware of the devastating consequences of uncontrolled rapine by adventurers who possessed no abiding stake in the land. He therefore struggled to prevent a recurrence in Mexico of the mindless style of conquest that had left nothing but devastation in its wake. As expressed by Gomara, his philosophy was that `without settlement there is no good conquest, and if the land is not conquered, the people will not be converted. Therefore the maxim of the conqueror must be to settle.'86 It was to encourage settlement that he arranged the repartimiento of Indians among his companions, who were to hold them in trust, or encomienda, and promoted the founding or refounding of cities in a country which already had large ceremonial complexes and urban concentrations. And it was to encourage conversion that he invited the first Franciscans - the so-called `twelve apostles' - to come to Mexico. Conquest, conversion and colonization were to be mutually supportive.
Effective colonization would not be possible without a serious attempt to develop the resources of the land, and Cortes himself, with his sugar plantations on his Cuernavaca estates and his promotion of long-distance trading ventures, practised what he preached.87 But he was only one among the many conquistadores and early settlers who displayed marked entrepreneurial characteristics. As new waves of Spanish immigrants moved across the continent in the aftermath of the conquest of Mexico and Peru, it became clear that the easiest forms of wealth - silver and Indians - were reserved for the fortunate few. Disappointed conquistadores and new immigrants therefore had to fend for themselves as best they could. This meant, as it had meant in the lands recovered by the Christians in medieval Andalusia, applying their skills as artisans in the cities, or exploiting local possibilities to develop new sources of wealth. The sixteenth-century settlers of Guatemala, for instance - a region without silver mines - developed an export trade in indigo, cacao and hides for American and European markets.88
Entrepreneurial as well as seigneurial aspirations were therefore to be found in this Spanish American colonial society, and already in the first half of the century that great chronicler of the Indies, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, was expressing pride in Spanish entrepreneurial accomplishments: `We found no sugar mills when we arrived in these Indies, and all these we have built with our own hands and industry in so short a time.'89 Similarly, Gomara's praise for the success of the Spaniards in `improving' Hispaniola and Mexico shows that the language of improvement was being used by the Spaniards a century before English colonists turned to it in order to justify to themselves and to others their presence in the Caribbean and the North American mainland.90
Spain's empire of the Indies, then, cannot be summarily categorized as an empire of conquest, reflecting exclusively the military and seigneurial values of the metropolitan society that
Cortes would have seen for himself something of the transformation of Hispaniola into a well-ordered and economically viable community, while at the same time his Caribbean experiences made him aware of the devastating consequences of uncontrolled rapine by adventurers who possessed no abiding stake in the land. He therefore struggled to prevent a recurrence in Mexico of the mindless style of conquest that had left nothing but devastation in its wake. As expressed by Gomara, his philosophy was that `without settlement there is no good conquest, and if the land is not conquered, the people will not be converted. Therefore the maxim of the conqueror must be to settle.'86 It was to encourage settlement that he arranged the repartimiento of Indians among his companions, who were to hold them in trust, or encomienda, and promoted the founding or refounding of cities in a country which already had large ceremonial complexes and urban concentrations. And it was to encourage conversion that he invited the first Franciscans - the so-called `twelve apostles' - to come to Mexico. Conquest, conversion and colonization were to be mutually supportive.
Effective colonization would not be possible without a serious attempt to develop the resources of the land, and Cortes himself, with his sugar plantations on his Cuernavaca estates and his promotion of long-distance trading ventures, practised what he preached.87 But he was only one among the many conquistadores and early settlers who displayed marked entrepreneurial characteristics. As new waves of Spanish immigrants moved across the continent in the aftermath of the conquest of Mexico and Peru, it became clear that the easiest forms of wealth - silver and Indians - were reserved for the fortunate few. Disappointed conquistadores and new immigrants therefore had to fend for themselves as best they could. This meant, as it had meant in the lands recovered by the Christians in medieval Andalusia, applying their skills as artisans in the cities, or exploiting local possibilities to develop new sources of wealth. The sixteenth-century settlers of Guatemala, for instance - a region without silver mines - developed an export trade in indigo, cacao and hides for American and European markets.88
Entrepreneurial as well as seigneurial aspirations were therefore to be found in this Spanish American colonial society, and already in the first half of the century that great chronicler of the Indies, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, was expressing pride in Spanish entrepreneurial accomplishments: `We found no sugar mills when we arrived in these Indies, and all these we have built with our own hands and industry in so short a time.'89 Similarly, Gomara's praise for the success of the Spaniards in `improving' Hispaniola and Mexico shows that the language of improvement was being used by the Spaniards a century before English colonists turned to it in order to justify to themselves and to others their presence in the Caribbean and the North American mainland.90
Spain's empire of the Indies, then, cannot be summarily categorized as an empire of conquest, reflecting exclusively the military and seigneurial values of the metropolitan society that
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