Spanish Colonization: Shmoop US History Guide

At the end of the 15th century, in a place later known as the Bahamas, Arawak men and women emerged from their villages to watch as Christopher Columbus and his sailors came ashore. He had intended to sail to Asia; he was lucky that he found North America in the middle of his voyage, since, otherwise, he and his crew would have starved. Zinn tells this story from the perspective of the Arawak, noting how Columbus, from his first days in the Bahamas, aimed to subjugate the Arawak.

The tone and structure of this opening passage suggests that this book will study familiar historical events from an unfamiliar perspective: Related Quotes with Explanations.

On his second voyage to the New World, Columbus again failed to find gold. Instead, he kidnapped more Indians, many of whom died on the voyage back to Europe. In Haiti, he enslaved entire tribes, ordering them to search for gold or be killed. In just two years, Columbus killed nearly half the population of Haiti. Las Casas further claimed that settlers in the New World tortured the natives, putting them to work in horrific mines. His goal was simple: However, Zinn brings up de las Casas, suggesting that, even in the s, some Europeans regarded Columbus as a murderer and a thief.

Most school textbooks paint Columbus as a hero, and either ignore his genocidal crimes altogether or mention them very briefly. By definition, all historians have to make calculations about what parts of history to emphasize and what parts to ignore. As a result, ordinary people may come to accept violence as basic parts of history, and, perhaps, of the present, too.

He creates a clear imperative for his project, suggesting that he has a moral duty to tell a version of history that holds people like Columbus accountable for their genocidal crimes. Otherwise, he and other historians would be implicitly accepting murder and violence. Too many historians treat American history as a list of heroic, larger-than-life people: Columbus , the Founding Fathers, the presidents, etc. Furthermore, many historians treat history as if all Americans—people of all ages, races, classes, and religions—have the same interests and priorities because they are American.

America is not one community: Zinn quotes the writer Albert Camus: Zinn will try to tell American history from the perspective of persecuted people—the people whose stories have often been ignored and whose lives have often been very difficult. Zinn sees it as the duty of the historian not simply to relay what happened, but to remedy the marginalization that persecuted people have experienced, both in history and in history books. Even though he admits that the persecuted can be cruel to one another, Zinn will focus, by and large, on the commonalities and alliances between the persecuted, rather than their differences.

In Peru, another Spanish explorer, Francisco Pizarro , used similar tactics to conquer the Inca civilization. San Antonio, City for a King. Conflict in Colonial Sonora: Indians, Priests, and Settlers. The Indian in Latin American History.

People of the Volcano. Revolution and Independence in Latin America. The Social Evolution of the Argentine Republic. Colonial and Postcolonial Latin America and the Caribbean. Spaniards in the Colonial Empire. Twilight of the Mission Frontier. Jose De la Torre Curiel. The History of Latin America. From Spain to Texas. The Lords of Tetzcoco. The River People in Flood Time. Defiance and Deference in Mexico's Colonial North. Political Culture in Spanish America, — Inherit the Dust from the Four Winds of Revilla. Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century.

Alejandro de la Fuente. Spanish Missions of Texas. Preserving Early Texas History. Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution. The Mark of Rebels. Forced Migration in the Spanish Pacific World. Walking Tours of San Luis Potosi.

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Little Bee The Other Hand. Love in the Time of Cholera. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As I Lay Dying. Shmoop US History Guide: Cuban Missile Crisis to Detente. In , Native Americans at the Bahia missions told the soldiers that the Karankawas had massacred a group of Europeans who had been shipwrecked near the mouth of the Guadalupe River.

The soldiers continued to explore the coast, and reported that foreign powers could easily build a small settlement on the barrier islands, which were difficult to access from the mainland, and then ascend the Trinity or San Jacinto Rivers into the heart of Texas.

The fort would be both a deterrent to the more bloodthirsty tribes and to the English. The Spanish government, fearful of smuggling, declined to give permission for a port or a boat on the Texas coast. His administration also attempted to build alliances with native troops, and planned to work with the Comanche and the Wichita to wipe out the Apache raiders.

The governor pardoned many of the fugitives, and most of them returned to the mission. For much of the s, the Comanche had raided in New Mexico. During the same time period the Apaches, who had been stockpiling guns received from the Karankawas, returned to raiding settlements in Texas, violating their peace treaty. The Comanches were willing to fight the enemies of their new friends, and soon attacked the Karankawa. Over the next several years, the Comanches killed many of the Karankawa in the area and drove the others into Mexico.

In , mission San Antonio de Valero was secularized, and the following year the four remaining missions at San Antonio were partially secularized. Confronted with Spanish, Mexican, and American outposts on their periphery in New Mexico, Texas, and Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya in northern Mexico, they worked to increase their own safety, prosperity and power. Their empire collapsed after the Spanish era as their villages were repeatedly decimated by epidemics of smallpox and cholera in the late s; the population plunged from 20, to just a few thousand by the s. The Comanches were no longer able to deal with the U.

Army, which took over control of the region after the Mexican—American War ended in The Comanches operated as an autonomous power inside the area claimed by Spain but not controlled by it. The Comanches used their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Mexicans, and Native Americans through thievery, tribute, and kidnappings, and the Spanish could do little to stop them because the Comanches controlled most of the horses in the region and thus had more wealth and mobility.

Dealing with subordinate Native Americans, the Comanche spread their language and culture across the region. In terms of governance, the Comanches created a centralized political system, based on a foraging market economy, and a hierarchical social organization. As it was difficult to return east across the mountains, the settlers began looking toward the Spanish colonies of Louisiana and Texas to find places to sell their crops. Although some chiefs refused to trade with them and reported their movements to Spanish authorities, other bands welcomed the newcomers.

To meet the American demand for livestock, the Comanche turned to raiding the area around San Antonio. The Spanish government believed that security would come with a larger population, but was unable to attract colonists from Spain or from other New World colonies. Over two-thirds of the adults in Texas were married, and single men outnumbered single women, although there was a high percentage of widows. Children from these unions often passed as whites. In , Spain gave Louisiana back to France in exchange for the promise of a throne in central Italy.

Although the agreement was signed on October 1, , it did not go into effect until The following year, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States. Many of the Spaniards who had moved to the colony left for Texas, Florida, or other Spanish-held lands.

A People’s History of the United States

The original agreement between Spain and France had not explicitly specified the borders of Louisiana, and the descriptions in the documents were ambiguous and contradictory. In , the King of Spain decided that there was no need to move the boundary from Natchitoches to the Sabine River , as had been recommended by some Frenchmen.

Spain maintained that Louisiana extended only as far as Natchitoches, and that it did not include the Illinois Territory. Texas was again considered a buffer province, this time between New Spain and the United States. The plan was cancelled as the government did not have the money to relocate the settlers.

For a brief time, Salcedo also allowed former Spanish subjects from Louisiana to come to Texas. A few Americans who had become naturalized Spaniards settled in Texas during that time. Salcedo warned, however, that "'the foreigners are not and will not be anything but crows to pick out our eyes. King Charles IV of Spain ordered data compiled to determine the true boundary. By , the number had doubled, with over stationed in and around Nacogdoches. Although his maps and notes were confiscated, Pike was able to recreate most of it from memory.

His glowing comments about Texas lands and animals made many Americans yearn to control the territory. The uprisings continued for the next six years, until his abdication in and the return of Ferdinand VII. During the time, there was little oversight of the New World colonies.

The constitutional government included representatives from the colonies, including Texas and New Mexico in New Spain. When King Ferdinand VII resumed his throne, he refused to recognize the new constitution or the representative government. He was forced to change his mind in as the only way to avert a military coup. During this time of turmoil, it was unclear who actually governed the colonies: Joseph I, the shadow government representing Ferdinand VII, the colonial officials, or revolutionaries in each province.

He was soon reversed by his uncle, the Commandant General. Salcedo persuaded Ignacio Elizondo his jailer to return to the royalist cause and the two organized a counter-coup. Hidalgo was captured and executed in Although officially neutral during the Peninsular War , the United States allowed rebels to trade at American ports [] and much of the weaponry and ammunition used by the rebels came from the United States. Americans also provided manpower for the conflict, with Natchitoches serving as a launching point for several expeditions into Texas.

Royalist soldiers even chased many of the women and children who had fled San Antonio, killing — Captured Americans were given an opportunity to take an oath of loyalty to Spain, and those who refused were escorted back to the United States. When they returned to their ranches several months later, they found that the Comanche had slaughtered all of the livestock, leaving most of the carcasses where they fell.

The exiles planned to use the colony as a base to liberate New Spain and then free Napoleon from St. They abandoned the colony shortly and returned to Galveston. The official boundary of Texas was set at the Sabine River the current boundary between Texas and Louisiana , then following the Red and Arkansas Rivers to the 42nd parallel California's current northern border. The following year Long established a new base near Galveston Bay "to free Texas from 'the yoke of Spanish authority.

Texas became a part of the newly independent nation without a shot being fired. Spanish control of Texas was followed by Mexican control of Texas, and it can be difficult to separate the Spanish and Mexican influences on the future state. The most obvious legacy is that of the language; [] the state's name comes from the Spanish rendering of an Indian word. At the end of Spain's reign over Texas, virtually all inhabitants practiced the Catholic religion, and it is still practiced in Texas by a large number of people.

The landscape of Texas was changed as a result of some Spanish policies. As early as the s, Spaniards brought European livestock, including cattle, horses, and mules, with them on their expeditions throughout the province. Some of the livestock strayed or stayed behind when the Spanish retreated from the territory in , allowing the Indian tribes to begin loosely managing herds of the animals.

Although the introduced livestock were able to adapt to the changing conditions, the buffalo had a more difficult time grazing among the new vegetation, beginning the decline in their numbers. Although Texas eventually adopted much of the Anglo-American legal system, many Spanish legal practices were retained. Among these was the Spanish model of keeping certain personal property safe from creditors.