Part 2 will be about one of my favorite books, "The Erotic Conquest of the Indies", which in Spanish is "La conquista erótica de las Indias" -- it lends itself to a double meaning, because "indias" can also be understood to mean "Indian women". It was written by an Argentine author and is based on historical documents that tell of the miscegenation on an epic scale that produced a new race: the Latin American people.
But let's start with Part 1. At the very end, Galeano includes Filipinas in an estimate of the wealth that the Spanish Empire funneled to Europe and China.
The
Spanish Conquest: A Capitalist
Enterprise
The great motor behind the discovery of the New World was economics:
Pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmeg
and cinnamon were as sought after as salt to preserve meat in winter without
rotting or losing its flavor. The
Catholic Kings of Spain decided to finance the adventure of direct access to
the sources, to free themselves of the expensive chain of intermediaries and
resellers (the Venetians and the Mongols) who monopolized the trade routes and thus the extremely profitable business of spices and tropical plants, muslins
and knives which came from the mysterious regions of the Orient. The desire for precious metals -- the means
of payment for the commercial traffic -- also motivated the crossing of the
devilish seas. All Europe needed silver:
the silver mines of Bohemia,
Saxony
and the Tyrol
were already almost exhausted.[1]
The
Motivations of the Conquistadors
Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru. His rival, Diego de Almagro, attempted to colonize Chile from Peru and failed.
Hernán Cortés, conquistador of Tenochtitlán (México), with La Malinche (whose name is synonymous with traidora) who became Cortés' mistress. La Malinche, known also as Malinalli, Malintzin or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who played a key role in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés
Pedro de Valdivia, founder of Santiago, claimed Chile for the Spanish king.
Inés de Suarez, mistress of Valdivia until his legal wife arrived from Spain. Ooopss...
Lautaro, Valdivia's groom who learned the Spaniards' military strategy and defeated them.
The Conquest was a capitalist enterprise, replicated with military
precision in all the lands claimed as Spanish possessions, and was the direct
consequence of Castile's thirst for new conquests after the expulsion of the Moors. This is the historical framework within which it is studied
in Chile, which makes it comprehensible for modern students. In the Philippines, however, its presentation
is absolutely disjointed, with so little context as to practically have
none. One day, we are simply told,
because of developments in Europe which spurred the search for spices, silks
and gems in the Indies, the Spanish Pope divided the world between Portugal and
Spain, and the Spanish conquistadors and friars appeared on our horizon to
claim us for the Catholic Kings and the Pope.
However, as the reading of just two paragraphs of Galeano's great work
drives home, the story is much more interesting when one first learns a little
about the internal process of Spain's formation as a nation and a world power,
and the conquistadors' identities and motivations.
During the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, those
who did not belong to the nobility in Spain were called "plebeyos" or
plebes,
and "villanos" -- inhabitants of a villa, a small population center, not so large as a city, but
larger than a village. The former were
the urban elements who exercised all manner of crafts, and the latter were the
inhabitants of the towns, connected to farm work. As for the noble class, it was made up of
"titled nobles" (dukes, counts and marquises), knights (caballeros -- who had the
wherewithal to own a horse and arms), and gentlemen (hidalgos). The outstanding
characteristic of the nobility was the cult to honor, which was hereditary and
which they had to maintain and enhance.
Because wealth enhanced personal honor, losing his wealth was reason for
a nobleman to be stripped of his title, and thus many nobles undertook
enterprises of conquest to preserve their privileges.
Chilean historian Luis Galdames explains that the Spanish nation
developed within a context of continual warring, from the days when the Goths
and Visigoths populated the peninsula and were conquered by the Romans. They developed a character that was
accustomed to hardship and open to adventure.
The frequent episodes of pillaging suffered during the Moorish invasions
and a mode of life that often revolved around shepherding and moving from place
to place to find better pasture and escape from persecution and hunger,
especially in Castile where the soil was poor and the climate tending to
extremes of heat and cold, gave the Spanish a similarly extreme temperament and
a hardy constitution that prepared them for the future challenges of discovery
and conquest of the New World.
The Spanish also developed an extreme religiousness, probably
because survival was so difficult and because religious faith was what
sustained their fight to drive out the Moors and was naturally strengthened by
victory.
The first to go to America were not the nobles; they only arrived
later as governors. A few impoverished hidalgos were the first to try their
luck in the new lands, a new space where they had wide opportunities for
finding wealth (gold and silver) and raising their social status. These motivations were shared by the plebes
and villanos who joined the expeditions of discovery and conquest and who made
up the majority of the ranks of 'conquistadors.' Most of them were uneducated, because
education was at that time the privilege of the nobility and clergy in Spain
and in all of Europe. Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, was an exceptional case of literacy
and culture, having studied law in Spain before becoming a soldier of
fortune. Francisco Pizarro, the bastard
son of a poor hidalgo who had worked
for his father as a swineherd, and Diego de Almagro, the son of peasants, were
both illiterate. However, as a result of the historical and social conditions
that had molded the Spanish national character, they were tough, astute and
courageous. Galdames explains that “they
came from regions where the conditions were not favorable for agriculture, such
as Extremadura and Castilla; others came from Andalucía, taking advantage of
the nearness of the ports.”
Types
of Spanish Enterprises in the New World
In 1495, once the Catholic Kings had taken away the privileges
conceded to Columbus,[2] the Indies were opened up to all those who wished to "recover in
them and search for gold, other metals, other merchandise."
Different types of enterprises were created for the conquistadors to
carry out in the Indies.
The enterprise of recovery was undertaken by a group of individuals with
the aim of "recovery," or the exchange of merchandise for the
natives' gold or precious objects.[3] The head of the expedition was obliged to give
the Crown 20% of the total value of what was recovered (called the quinto real or 'royal fifth'), after deducting operational costs.
The enterprise
of Indians, or cabalgada
de indios, had the objective of capturing Indians to sell into slavery, which
was justified either by the Indians' armed resistance or their refusal to
convert to Christianity.
The enterprise of conquest was
aimed at establishing a permanent settlement within a territory, using Indian
labor. The leaders of these were often
soldiers with experience from previous enterprises who, once they had obtained
some wealth, decided to organize and lead new expeditions to spread their fame.
Financing
and Other Mechanisms
The leadership of an enterprise was authorized by the king and queen
under a capitulación or agreement. The capitulación invested the captain of
conquest with sovereign powers and governmental functions such as Governor,
Judge or Chief Constable (Alguacil
Mayor). The subsequent refusal by the men recruited for an enterprise to
recognize the captain's leadership was tantamount to an act of rebellion.
Generally, most of the financing of an enterprise to the Indies was
the leader's responsibility and in many cases commercial firms participated by
lending the captain of conquest money under certain terms of repayment. In other words, the enterprises of conquest
were privately financed.
Once the head conquistador had obtained the document authorizing the
enterprise, he began recruitment. The system of operations was frankly
medieval, since national armies had not yet come into existence. The hired army
also included surgeons, sailors, chaplains and a veedor or inspector (literally "seer"), who was in charge
of setting aside the quinto real (the
royal fifth) for the King, out of the booty obtained.
The captain of conquest could not act according to personal
initiative in the operations of conquest -- at least, not legally. Aside from
the stipulations of the capitulación,
the conquistador received instructions, which he had to follow. These covered
the issues of navigation, methods for making war, prohibition against
concubinage (universally transgressed), blasphemy and gambling, and the
obligation to evangelize and take judicial possession of the conquered
territory.
Along with the small army of Spaniards there usually marched
hundreds of Indian allies. They not only
participated as tongues, or interpreters, but also as warriors, fighting with
the Spaniards against other Indians.[4] Rivalries between tribes and the prospect of taking part in
pillaging and sharing in the booty were among the motivations which led
different tribes to ally themselves with the Spaniards.
This was certainly the case in the Philippines during the Spanish
conquest and period of colonization. In
Luzon the Spaniards relied on native fighters rallied by their datos or chiefs,
from Pampanga, Pangasinan and Ilocos to resist the 1762 British invasion, and
the British in turn were supported by natives under anti-Spanish native leaders such
as Diego Silang. After each battle the winning side gave permission for its
troops to loot and pillage for a few hours, and it was customary for
non-combatants such as Chinese or the impoverished to take advantage of the
general situation of anarchy. In this
way the regional (i.e., tribal) divisions took root among the native Filipinos,
rooted in the war violence perpetrated amongst themselves that surely became
branded in popular memory as generations-old grievances and blood feuds. The same happened between the Christianized
natives who fought the moros in the south in the services of their Spanish
rulers.
The
City and the Rewards of the Conquistador
The captain awarded prizes to his men according to the merits they
earned. He decided where a settlement
would be founded and a map of the future city was then traced. The solar or lot was the urban prize, equivalent to a quarter of a
block, set aside to construct a house for the beneficiary. The owners of solares became the city's principal neighbors or vecinos. Another prize was a
farm (chacra), a piece of rural property for the production of food,
located just beyond the city's perimeter.
Another prize was the distribution of rural land to each
conquistador to be converted into a large farm or hacienda. Other highly valued prizes were the
concession of gold and silver mines or placers, where gold was obtained by
washing.
The first settlements were established because of the conquistadors’
need to assure their own protection and survival and their success, in effect,
in claiming the new lands for the Spanish crown and implanting the new culture
and religion. They built first of all strongholds, fortresses, and the priests
were indispensable for the enterprise, both as fighters (the Augustinians and
Jesuits – religious orders founded in the tradition of medieval knights
defending the Christian faith in heathen lands, unlike the Dominicans and
Franciscans, who originally had mystical orientations – were particularly
renowned for their courage and for being war strategists and experts in the use
and fabrication of armaments and gunpowder), and for converting and
domesticating the fractious native population.
The
Encomienda System: Disguised Slavery
The need for manual labor to carry out the multiple tasks demanded
by the founding of a city and maintaining the needs of the community, as well
as to exploit the mines, explains the importance of another of the prizes: the encomienda of Indians (from encomendar,
to commend or entrust). The encomienda
was generally conceded for two lifetimes -- the encomendero's lifetime and that
of his son -- after which the encomienda reverted to the Crown, which could
then reassign it to someone else. It was
actually a disguised slavery which was to contribute to the decimation of the
Indians. In exchange for the encomienda
of Indians, the encomendero had the
duty of giving them protection and Christian indoctrination. But the dynamics of the conquest --
individualism, the desire for quick and easy wealth without concern for the
means employed to achieve it, and the Indians' belligerent resistance against
the new order to which the Spaniards wanted them to submit and which they
fiercely rejected, meant that any intention of "civilizing" the
Indians that may have been contained in the letter of the law was never
materialized. Instead, the encomienda
system became the precursor of the importation of black slaves, which began
when it became clear that the Indians could not endure the backbreaking work of
the mines and the fields, and they began dying off by the thousands.
The
First Colonial Settlement is Established in Chile
In 1540, after Diego de Almagro's death in Peru, during the war that
he waged against Pizarro and lost, Pedro de Valdivia, Pizarro's right hand and already a famous and wealthy
conquistador, requested permission to conquer Chile. He left Cuzco with 150 soldiers, 3,000 Indians, tools, domestic
animals and European seeds, since his intention was to initiate Chile's
colonization. With his expedition went
three priests and the first European woman to arrive in the country, Valdivia's
mistress, Inés de Suárez.[5]
On February 12, 1541, Valdivia founded a settlement in the central
Aconcagua Valley on a hill named Huelén (which meant “suffering” in the Mapuche
language, which Valdivia rechristened Santa Lucía) on a small island formed by
the bifurcation of the Mapocho River. He
named the new city Santiago
de la Nueva Extremadura in honor of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, and
after his birthplace, the region of Extremadura. Valdivia founded other important cities and
quelled uprisings by the Indians as well as among his own men, when some tried
to abandon Santiago and return to Peru because of poverty and hardship. Towards the end of 1553, the Indians under
the leadership of Lautaro, a 20-year-old Mapuche chief who until months before had
served as a groom in Valdivia's stables, attacked and destroyed a fort in Tucapel in the south.
Valdivia went to the fort's aid with just forty horsemen and a group of Picunche
Indians. They were attacked by
successive waves of Lautaro's warriors.
Valdivia, already admired by the Indians for his bravery, died in
battle. Legend tells that his heart was
ritually devoured by the triumphant chiefs to take unto themselves the conquistador's
courage.
The Disaster of Curalaba in 1598[6] which signalled a generalized Mapuche uprising and was followed by
the destruction of seven cities south of Concepción finally established the
southernmost limit of Chilean colonization where that city stands today. Thereafter the Spaniards renounced all
further attempts to subjugate the Mapuches, who did not tolerate even the presence of missionaries
within their territory. The cities, haciendas
and the agriculture and mining activity north of that frontier configured the
construct of colonial economic and social life.
A creole society developed, with intermarriage between Spaniards and
pacified Indians creating an ever-growing mestizo group.
Galeano makes reference to Earl J. Hamilton, a North American historical researcher who quantified the
wealth that flowed from the American colonies to Spain, concluding that the
combined wealth from the thousands of kilos of gold and silver funneled to
Spain from Hispanic America, as well as the revenue from the spices and
agricultural products brought from the Philippines, ended up in England and
France, from whom Spain bought manufactured goods and armaments, thus fueling
the Industrial Revolution.
[T]he flow of silver reached
gigantic proportions. The plentiful
clandestine exportation of American silver, which was siphoned off as
contraband to the Philippines, to China and to Spain itself, does not appear in
the calculations of Earl J. Hamilton, who at any rate offers astonishing
figures in his well-known work based on information obtained in the Casa de
Contratación.[7] Between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilos of gold
and 16 million kilos of silver arrived in Seville. The silver transported to Spain in little
more than a century and a half exceeded by three times the total of the
European reserves. And these
figures...do not include the contraband.[8]
Thus, the motivations of the Conquest were material more than
spiritual, and even in the spiritual realm, they were imperial -- to spread the
Empire of Christianity. The Conquest was
not an altruistic enterprise. It made
Spain and Portugal very rich and powerful indeed, and either decimated,
enslaved or pauperized their new subjects.
[1] Galeano, Open Veins.
[2]
Before Columbus left on his first voyage, Fernando and Isabella had made him
Governor of all the lands he would discover.
[3] The
octogenarian Chilean historian, Virginia García Lyon, said in a Santiago
lecture in 1992 that "Magellan brought with him perhaps millions of
communion hosts for the conversions to Catholicism, 900 small mirrors and 10
large ones, and bells, which greatly attracted the Indians."
[4]
Herren points out a detail left out of the history books: large numbers of Indian women were camp followers
of the Indian armies. They cooked,
washed and mended clothing and served as concubines, often giving birth along
the way. The conquistadors recruited men from different countries. According to Virginia García Lyon, nine
nations were represented in Magellan's crew, including 27 Italians, 38
Portuguese, German technicians, an Englishman, some Africans and Arabs.
[5] Inés
de Suárez is described in the historical accounts as a woman of unusual courage
and compassion, fighting the Indians alongside the men and keeping their morale
high in the first and very dangerous years of the settlement. Valdivia was later obliged to send her away
and bring his legal wife to Santiago.
[6] A
small force of around 380 soldiers led by Martín García Óñez de Loyola,
governor of Chile, undertook a campaign of pacification and was massacred in
Curalaba by the Mapuches under Pelantaru.
The Spanish were demoralized and admitted that they did not have the
military strength to defeat the Indians in the South because of the difficult
terrain, the inclement weather and the superior numbers and fighting ability of
the Mapuches. Besides their
non-dependence on agriculture for subsistence, they had an extremely efficient
system of leadership rotation in which any warrior chieftain killed in battle
was quickly replaced.
[7]
Described by Herring as a "Board of Trade," organized in 1503 and in
charge of overseeing the trade between Spain and her colonies. I would call it the "Royal Expeditionary
Office," since it was the body that gave the king's official approval to
the enterprises of conquest and kept track of their operations for the king's
benefit.
[8] The Open Veins of Latin America.
No comments:
Post a Comment