Rise of Europe

Rise of Europe: Colonialism and Capitalism

• Spain
• Portugal
• Reformation
• Counter reformation

Spain´s Empire

• One of the first empires
• In South America and Caribbean

• Cortes (1485-1547)
• Ordinary family with a military father and later Hernan Cortes joins the army as well.
• Cortes landed in Cuba (after joining the army) fighting the indigenous people. He is killing them and taking their land.
• He builds a reputation and gets a bit of land in Cuba.
• Around 1519 the army and Cortes is exploring the Yucatán area. In 1511 a ship went out to map the coast there but got stuck in a storm and only 20 people survived and got to land. The indigenous people caught them and then they were held in small wooden cages and were given a "fine" diet because then some of them were sacrificed and eaten… two men escaped and their names are: Geronimo Aguillar and Gonzalo Guerre. They got to a second tribe of indigenous people and there they were welcomed and were each offered a young girl to be their wives. Guerra took the wife and they even got children together, the first Metzito people in the world. Aguillar did not want the wife and were offered a boy instead but did not want him either.
• So in 1519 Cortes meats up with Aguillar (who has been living with the indigenous people for 8 years) and understood that Aguillar could speak both Spanish and the local language, Nahautal.
• They went with the ship to Tobasco. There Cortes meats La Malinche who can speak Nahautal and Aztec.
• They get to Flaxcala and there they make an alliance with the purpose to destroy and conquer the city of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire.

• Pizarro (1478-1541)
• From a Spanish military family
• When he went down the South American west coast he discovered the Empire of the Incas. He comes to the city of Lima and discovers that the empire just have died and his two sons are fighting about who would become the new empire, a small civil war. He conquers the Inca Empire for the Spanish.

• Reasons for Spain´s success (important for the test)
• Military technology and organisation
• They had horses
• Advanced weapons - metal
• They had  guns and gunpowder
• The guns took long time to reload but the gun itself was very frightening itself so that people ran when they saw it.
• They also had canons
• Their system of defence
• Armours - iron for the rich and leather for the poor. This was the strongest asset they possessed.
• Divided and poorly led opponents
• European diseases (smallpox)
• Exploit local divisions

• What were the economic benefits of all this?
• Initial wealth from looting (stealing)
• Gold (70%) and silver (80%)
• Colonies
• Forced labour of encomienda
• Repartimiento governed plantations and mines
• Haciendas used paid and indentured labour

• Spain´s weakness
• Lacked commercial infrastructure
• Banking
• Having a ice standard currency. Same in Amsterdam as in Constantinople.
• Shipping
• The first stock market in ships was in Amsterdam
• Insurance
• Charles V (king of Spain) (1516-1556)
• Wars against Ottoman Empire
• Catholic versus (vs.) Protestant
• Supply of gold
• 1591-1600 - 135 million pesos
• 1651-1660 - 19 million pesos

Portuguese empire

• Their strategy is to go out and find trading posts around the world
• They found Brazil by accident

• Bartholomeu Dias
• Was the first man to map a route around Africa 

• Vasco de Gama
• He remaps the route around Africa
• He attacks ships and builds up to attack and in the end capture ships and the trading routes
• He captured and took over Mombasa and Mozambik
• He basically took control over the Indian Ocean

• Sugar and trade
• Vasco de Gama 1498, Indian Ocean
• Dominate by force Indian Ocean trade
• India bound ships blown off course
• Brazilian colonies
• Sugar (their most important long term product)
• Gold (3000 tons p/y)
• Diamonds

• Portugal Success?
• Aristocratic attitude to trade
• Most aristocrats went to war because it was honourable
• State monopoly and corruption
• Everything goes through the king and then he gives it to his nobility
• Religion cultural and linguistic
• Brazil is the largest country speaking Portuguese.
• Ships went from Portugal towards Africa but got stuck in the gulf stream and then the ships got stranded  in Brazil - that is the reason to why they speak Portuguese

Christian Disillusionment

• It is based on stories from the Old Testament

• The Bible

• Started to doubt the stories and the Bible

• Not all churches possessed a Bible

• You found the Bible in the homes of the kings and the really high nobility

• Churches monopoly of interpretation

• Catholic commercialism and corruption
• They made hard liquor and beer in some monasteries. Used the monasteries as distilleries.
• Nunneries run as brothels - not all (!) but some.
• People spoke about these when they complained on the Catholic church    

• Rising dissent and Spanish Inquisition
• People speaking out on the establishment of the church
• This led to executions and the most common Christian way of doing this is by burning. They wanted to purify the men and take away all the evil in them.

• Torquemada Investigates (not last name - the verb!)
• The head of the Inquisition
• Was allowed to torture people who had been rising dissent towards the church
• Was allowed to humiliate people who had been rising dissent towards the church

• Martin Luther of Wittenberg  (1483-1546)
• Priest in Wittenberg
• If you paid enough of money you could by a note called Indulgence which was a guaranty to heaven
• You could even by this for a sick relative if you wanted to
• Martin was very disgusted by this
• He was a man of principals 
• He wrote down his complains on a piece of paper and nailed it on a church and then he ran away
• He was put on trial for this  but survives because he is protected by independently minded local rulers 
• He is not questioning God but some decisions of the church

• Christian Schism
• The church can excommunicate you, which meant the church could throw you out from the church
• Many followers of the Catholic Church agrees with Martin and sticks to him

• How could the Catholic Church respond?
• St Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)
• Brought in education
• Spread Christianity internationally (in the new world)
• St Francis Xavier
• Founder of the Jesuits movement
• The Jesuits is an order of monks
• St Vincent de Paul (1581-1660)
• Return to the essence of Jesus
• Helped and lived with the Parisian poor
• He lived a very Christian life
• He became a saint

• Counter Reformation
• Council of Trent