- Exploitation of resources
- Europeans viewed the Americas primarily as a source of wealth, extracting gold, silver, sugar, and later cash crops like tobacco and coffee for European markets.
- Colonies were designed to serve mercantilist goals, supplying raw materials to the mother country and buying European manufactured goods.
- Resource extraction caused environmental damage, including deforestation, soil depletion, and the destruction of Indigenous farmlands.
- The exploitation of labor and land created an Atlantic economy that linked Europe, Africa, and the Americas in a system of trade and enslavement.
- Spanish silver boom
- The discovery of massive silver deposits at Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) in the 16th century transformed Spain into Europe’s richest power.
- By the late 1500s, Potosí alone produced nearly half the world’s silver, much of it mined by forced Indigenous labor.
- Silver fueled Spain’s empire, paying for European wars, art, and naval expansion, and became a foundation of global trade, especially with Asia through the Manila Galleons.
- The wealth also led to economic dependency, as Spain relied on colonial bullion instead of building local industries.
- Gold and silver’s role
- The discovery of massive silver deposits at Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) in the 16th century transformed Spain into Europe’s richest power.
- By the late 1500s, Potosí alone produced nearly half the world’s silver, much of it mined by forced Indigenous labor.
- Silver fueled Spain’s empire, paying for European wars, art, and naval expansion, and became a foundation of global trade, especially with Asia through the Manila Galleons.
- The wealth also led to economic dependency, as Spain relied on colonial bullion instead of building local industries.
- The encomienda system
- The encomienda system granted Spanish settlers the right to demand labor, tribute, or goods from Indigenous communities in exchange for “protection” and religious instruction.
- In practice, it became a system of forced labor that fueled mining, agriculture, and construction across Spanish America.Conditions were brutal, with high mortality rates due to overwork, malnutrition, and exposure to European diseases.
- The system contributed directly to the collapse of Indigenous populations and the introduction of African slavery to replace lost labor.
- Although later reforms such as the Laws of Burgos (1512) and New Laws (1542) tried to regulate or abolish it, enforcement remained weak, and exploitation continued for decades.
- Always link the encomienda to Spanish imperial goals of resource extraction and conversion.
- Use Bartolomé de Las Casas as evidence of early moral debates about empire and Indigenous rights.
Definition
Repartimiento
A later system that replaced encomiendas but still forced Indigenous labor under state supervision.
- The fur trade (French and Dutch)
- In North America, the French and Dutch developed economies based on the fur trade rather than large-scale conquest or settlement.
