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AMY FULLER: I'm Amy Fuller. I'm Lecturer in the history of the Americas at Nottingham Trent University. Well, it's one of those kind of groundbreaking moments really,

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in the history of the world. It's arguably when the world opens up. It's the first time that the Americas come into contact with Europe, and then from there they come into contact

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with Africa and Asia. And it's really one of the moments where we can start to talk about an early modern and into the modern from the mediaeval period.

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Exploration is one of those key themes that show that the world is moving on and starting to look from inwards to outwards, with each nation beginning to want

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to explore the world around. So often, the early modern period is termed in this way, partly due to exploration. So for example, 1500 is often seen

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as a point where you can start to think of the early modern from the mediaeval. That obviously depends on country because each nation will present its modernity

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in a different way, depending on its own achievements. So probably 1492 would be Spain's point at which it sees itself going into the modern from the mediaeval.

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So exploration is really important in this sense, in periodization as well. The Spanish Golden Age of exploration really centres on 1492 and Columbus's first voyage.

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However, you can't really avoid the Iberian exploration as a whole. So Portugal has to come into it because that's the whole context and part of the reason why Columbus goes

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on his voyage of discovery. And so it all kind of begins at the beginning of the 15th century in 1412, really, when Portugal, led by Henry the Navigator,

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take the Canary Islands. And then in 1415, you get Portugal's first conquest in North Africa. And so from then on, they start their exploration and conquest

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down the coast of Africa, which eventually leads to a Bartolomeu Dias' rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and his arrival into the Indian Ocean because, of course, all of this is to get to the East,

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to get to the riches that are in the East, the spices, all of the things that are seen in European terms as the things of value. So one of the reasons why Spain gets involved

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is because Portugal are doing this already. But Spain is preoccupied with the Reconquista up until 1492, when they finally expelled the Moors from Granada.

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And so it's really then at that moment that Spain is ready to start look outwards itself, and stop focusing on its own reconquest, and begin thinking about conquest

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outside of its own country. Portugal and Spain are completely connected when it comes to exploration. We can almost talk about it in Iberian terms

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because of the way that they interact with each other. Spain is busy with the Reconquista initially when Portugal kick things off by beginning to conquer territory

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in the Atlantic, the Canary Islands, and then in the north coast of Africa, and continue downwards until 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope.

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And during this time, Spain is busy. But it's on the back of this that Spain does decide to fund Columbus' voyage. And they're feeling quite confident

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having expelled the Moors and having expelled the Jews. And all of that is connected with the decision to fund Columbus' voyage, the voyage of discovery. But Columbus' first voyage starts

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to worry the Portuguese because he does stray into their territory. And so in 1493 the Pope awards Spain territory in the New World with the proviso

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that they are there to convert any people that they find. And then this is further affirmed with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, when Spain and Portugal agree the lines of the territory

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that they can each have. And the interesting thing about that as well is that the way they see it, it's only them that are allowed to conquer

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these new territories. And they completely ignore the rest of Europe in this process of conquest and colonisation of these new territories.

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And so they more or less stick to where they're allowed. But this changes when Portugal starts to conquer and colonise Brazil from 1500. But Spain doesn't really oppose this, probably

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because they are quite busy with their own conquest and colonisation of the other parts of South America at this point. It's twofold really.

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You can't really talk about Spanish colonisation without discussing the economics, but also the religious side. But the weird thing about it is that those two aspects aren't

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really compatible, and that's where certain problems started to arise. So for example, what becomes Mexico as we know it today is first known

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as New Spain, at least the central part that involves Mexico City and the outer areas. And it's called New Spain for a reason, because the Spaniards want to create this new almost utopian society, in their terms

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anyway, a new and improved Spain. And this is very much on religious terms because there is a feeling at this point in Catholic Europe and especially in Spain because it's already

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reconquered its territory from the Moors and also expelled the Jews. There's almost a claustrophobic feeling in Spain that they're being attacked from the south

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by Islam, and also from the east with the Ottoman Turks, but also the rise of Protestantism that's happening in northern Europe. And so there's a real feeling that America, the Indies,

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are the place where they can start again, and start afresh, and build this New Spain. So we have to see it in those terms. And they do want to make money.

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And there's a particular goal to get gold, in particular gold, and then later silver when they find the silver mines. But unfortunately, this isn't really compatible with their wanting to build a new Spain

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with everything that they would have in the old world, such as lavish churches, and huge cathedrals, and universities, and things like that.

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So although they do want economic gain, they probably don't go about things in the most sensible way in order to gain these things because they are very preoccupied with building up their cities.

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And also converting the population, the native population, is also a key goal. On the one hand, you have the indigenous people being used as a work force to build this New

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Spain and the new territories, but there's also a want to convert them to Christianity. And from this, you get a real conflict between the goals of the Church and the goals of the people

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that have gone to settle there because, of course, people don't start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic if they're going to have less than they did at home. They want to go and make their fortune.

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They want to make something of themselves and make a new life with their families. You could kind of see this as the beginnings of the American dream in that sense.

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And so these people don't go there to work or do menial tasks or to work very hard. They want people working for them. And that inevitably it often becomes the indigenous people

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who are used to do that work. And so there's a resentment on behalf of the settlers for a lot of the time, with them not really wanting to have to let them go to church

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and let them go and have their lessons to be taught the Christian doctrine. They don't want to allow them have holy days off, and festival days off, and things like that.

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So there are two kind of separate goals that really don't work. So there's a lot of tension, especially in the early colonial period, between the settlers

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and the Church and the Crown also, who has the Church's goal, but they also want to make money. And that is often at the expense of the settlers who have their allocation of native labour in the form

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of the Encomienda or the Repartimiento. And they're being taxed on that by the crown. And so, of course, that further diminishes their takings. So from that point of view as well, there's also tension.

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There's a lot of tension. There's a lot of conflict. And the colonial period, especially the early colonial period within Mexico, in particular,

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is one of a lot of conflict. The indigenous people of the Caribbean in particular were completely devastated by interactions with the Europeans.

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And that is in terms of population decline. We don't know how many people actually lived in the Caribbean when the Europeans arrived. The best estimates are around a few million people.

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But by 1518, the best estimate is about 30,000 people left. So if we take it from 1492, that's a decline in population of 97% within a quarter of a century. So it's completely decimated, essentially.

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There are several reasons behind that devastation. Disease is thought to be one of the major factors. Of course, the people in the Americas did not have the immunity to all of the European diseases that

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were around. And it wasn't even European diseases. Diseases that originated in Asia and Africa that had worked their way around Europe because of the way

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that the world in Europe was open, especially the plague and things like that having gone mad. But things that we would we would think of as fairly unimportant, such

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as the flu, the common cold, would be incredibly dangerous to the people of the Americas, simply due to the lack of immunity that they had to those diseases.

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And so smallpox also is though to be a major factor, more so on the mainland. There are accounts of smallpox ravaging Tenochtitlan in particular during the siege of Tenochtitlan,

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during the conquest of Mexico. But even things like the flu would have had a devastating effect on the population of the Caribbean.

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Aside from the lack of immunity that the people had, one of the reasons why the effects of the interactions between indigenous people and the Europeans in the Caribbean was so devastating

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was the kind of work that they were put to. So when Columbus first arrives in the Caribbean, he's quite obsessively seeking gold because that's one of the things that he's

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hoping will appease the king and queen and get him further funding to carry on with his missions, but also it's the thing that he's hoping to reward his men with.

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And so when they don't find this gold, the obvious available resource is the people. And so they're the ones that are used to repay people. So you have this thing called the Encomienda system,

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which is a grant of "Indian" indigenous labour, which is rewarded to people. And it's the only form of wealth in the Indies. You're nobody if you don't have an Encomienda.

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It's the way that you can make money out of being there. But the problem with it is although it's very hard to imagine something that's worse than slavery, because you don't actually own the people, there's a lack of investment,

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really, in their well-being. And so because the Europeans did not own the native people under this Encomienda system, there was no real incentive to ensure that they were OK.

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So the way that the settlers saw it was they may as well just work them and get what they can from them. And so you have these indigenous people panning for gold in the Caribbean, which is incredibly backbreaking work.

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And they essentially work them to death. And also, because they don't own them and they don't really care about their well-being, they work them so hard that they don't have time

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to do things like farm. They don't have time to hunt or get food in the normal way that they would normally be able to feed themselves. And so they are also starving.

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Essentially, they're working to death, and they're starving to death. So not only did they not have time to farm, but the Europeans also bring--

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when they start to colonise, they bring livestock with them, which decimates their farm land because in the Americas prior to the Europeans coming, they don't have livestock at all.

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This livestock also brings disease as well. So it just kind of goes on and on, and there's just a huge cycle of destruction really happening from the disease itself

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due to their lack of immunity, the fact that they're being overworked, worked to death. Also, there seems to be evidence of just very odd and very atrocious behaviour on a scale that's never really seen before

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or after due to partly, probably due to the fact that they are so far away from the Crown. And this is before proper bureaucracy is brought in. So there's almost a sense of, we can do what we want.

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There's a kind of mob mentality that takes over. And so all of this together makes for devastating consequences, especially in the Caribbean. And it's so bad that there are a few--

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it's a minority, but a vocal minority that tries to make change happen. This starts with Antonio de Montesinos. He's a priest in the Caribbean who

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gives a sermon in 1511, which questions, even more than questions, outright accuses the settlers of mistreatment, and also questions their Christianity, questions the very nature of their being

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there. And it's a very powerful sermon that influenced someone called Bartolome de las Casas, who himself was a settler, and who had a kind of conversion

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experience, became a friar, and then became a bishop in the New World. And he, from 1515 to 1516, started petitioning the King for change.

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And this culminates in his publication of the Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1552. From 1550 to 1551, Las Casas debates the nature

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of the indigenous people with the idea that he actually questions the validity and the legality of Spain's conquest in the New World because, of course, their very being there

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is on religious terms. And the legality of their conquest is on religious terms. They are supposed to be converting the people, and that's the very reason behind the Pope awarding Spain

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this side of the Atlantic. And the Pope agreeing to their conquest in the New World is on the grounds that they will convert the people to Christianity.

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And so he has this debate, which is inconclusive in the end. However, he then goes on to write one of probably the most effective pieces of propaganda ever written, called A Brief Account

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of the Destruction of the Indies, which is incredibly emotive piece of work. It inflates numbers a lot and it talks about things, not in factual terms; but the purpose of this piece of work

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was to try to effect change. And it was listened to. And there were certain pieces of legislation that were put in place as a result of it

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to kind of varying degrees of success. But for example, he presents the Spaniards as wolves. He presents the indigenous people as lambs. And it's all in very Christian terms.

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He refers to the Spaniards as Christians throughout in order to reinforce that the supposed role that they should have, of converting these people. And he presents the native peoples

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as these ideal converts, that they're not only lively, intelligent people, but they would be incredibly receptive to the Christian faith. And he presents this to the King as this great shame,

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that you have these people who he actually compares to the first monks. He compares them to the Desert Fathers and says, these people are so simple, and their diet is so sparse,

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and they are not interested in worldly goods. And they would fall over themselves to become the best converts that you can imagine. And what are these people doing?

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They're murdering them in the most atrocious ways possible. And so not only are they being killed, but they're being killed still in their heathen state, and therefore, not only condemning their bodies,

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but also their souls to hell. And he really presents the King himself as responsible for this, and states the King's responsibility to change this.

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And it has some successes, but unfortunately, it's written too late for the people of the Caribbean, who have the most devastating effects on their population. And it's actually quite interesting,

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the way he presents the indigenous people. Columbus, in his writings, presents them in similar ways, simple, intelligent, but for very different purposes; Columbus

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is presenting the indigenous people of the Caribbean as the potential work force. And he talks about the fact that they could easily subjugate them all.

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They're very simple. They want for nothing. And this is very much presented in terms that they could become slaves.

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And Las Casas kind of takes this rhetoric, and turns it on its head, and says that they're simple like these first monks, these Desert Fathers.

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And actually, they are not natural slaves. They are potentially the best converts that you could ever have, the best subject for this new Catholic land that could

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be created if your settlers who are supposed to be setting an example for these people actually do the job that they're supposed to be doing, instead of murdering them.

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The role of religion in the interactions between the Europeans and the indigenous people really depends on where and when you're talking. There isn't much religious intervention in the Caribbean.

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Although priests are first brought to the Caribbean with Columbus's second voyage in 1494, they don't make much of an effort to try to convert the population at all.

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It's really when you get to the colonisation of the mainland and specifically with the Aztecs and later with the Maya, that there is a real conversion effort that starts, that has become known as the spiritual conquest.

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This begins in 1524 with the first 12 Franciscan friars arriving in New Spain. This is a symbolic gesture because they see themselves as apostolic.

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They see it as an apostolic mission because the way they look at it, there hasn't been a time since the early church that a whole host of people with no knowledge of Christianity

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has needed to be converted. So they deem their mission in these apostolic terms. And so the first 12 arrive with this a huge inflated self sense of mission and importance.

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Now, the problem that they face is trying to understand who they are. That seems weird, to need to know who they are, but when they arrive in Mexico in particular

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and they find these people that are so different from the people that they've known in the Caribbean-- they live in odd societies, in cities, some of which

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are on a par or even greater in terms of size and civilization than you would find in Europe. For example, Tenochtitlan is thought to have a population of around 200,000 people, which

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would make it one of the biggest cities in the world and probably the biggest city or one of the biggest cities that the Conquistadors themselves had ever seen. So when you are faced with people

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within this kind of level of civility, it's very difficult for the Europeans to square the fact that they don't know Christ, because according to Christian doctrine

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and what's said in the Bible, the apostles should have gone to all corners of the world and converted the people to Christianity-- or preached the word of Christ.

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And so the people of the Caribbean are a very different case for the Europeans. They're easily written off as almost subhuman. And so their lack of knowledge of Christianity

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isn't such a problem because they don't see them in the same way as they see the Aztecs, and the Maya, and the other indigenous peoples of the mainland, and especially Mexico, what becomes Mexico.

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With the people of the Caribbean, they can be seen as natural slaves and that doesn't cause a problem. They can be deemed below the intelligent level required

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to grasp Christianity. However, when they reach the mainland and they see people living in what they understand as civilization, great cities, and clearly

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a very developed knowledge of the world and astronomy and all the rest of it, there's a problem there because these people really should know of Christ. And so what happens is, and we see this especially

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in the writings of the history of the Aztecs and the history of the Maya, the friars who create these documents want to demonstrate that-- or they want to place these people

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within the biblical framework, within that biblical tradition of how they see history. And so you have two main points of view in this. The first one is that the Aztecs, who they believed

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to be pagan because they see that they have many different gods-- they see them in almost Roman terms. They often compare the gods to the Roman gods

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in order to make sense of them in terms that they understand. And the way they explain their lack of Christian knowledge is that they try to find similarities between their religion and Christianity.

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So for example, they see things like cannibalism as a demonic version of the Eucharist. And the idea being that the apostles did reach Mexico, they did convert, that they

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did preach the word of Christ to the Aztecs, but that in the time that has passed, they haven't had the teaching that was necessary for them to continue.

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And so what happened in their lives, is that the devil took over and that the devil kind of perverted their idea of Christianity. And so you get these ideas that certain festivals

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are demonic versions of Christian rights or Christian festivals. And so everything they do is presented in that sense. And a similar thing is done with writings about the Maya

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later on. And so what we have to do as historians, what's really difficult about it. Our job, when we want to know about the Aztecs, for example,

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is that although we have a lot of sources about them, most of them are written either primarily by friars or at least by friars in conjunction with native informants.

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But there's always this desire to try to place them within the Christian world view in order to make sense of them, in terms that mean that what is written in the Bible is still valid,

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and they don't need to question that. Again, really depends on the place. In terms of the Caribbean, there isn't much left at all, mainly because the population was completely devastated.

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And so we also don't know very much about the indigenous people of the Caribbean at all. Columbus actually commissioned a piece of work on the indigenous religion, the Taino religion

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in particular, which was completed by someone called Ramon Pane. And that's pretty much the extent. It's a very short volume.

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That's pretty much the extent of what we know about the Taino religion, and they obviously all died out. Then when you kind of move on to the mainland,

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it really depends on which area you look at. So the main urban centres were pretty well converted to Catholicism. It took a long time, but it's what you would recognise

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as the Catholic faith, especially Mexico City where it all began, and the other kind of main centres. When you look at rural areas, that's when things start to get a little bit strange.

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And that's where we would start to question whether what's being presented as Catholicism really is Catholicism. So in rural areas, it was very difficult for the conversion

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process to really take hold in any kind of tangible way. Due to the terrain, due to the vast numbers of people, also due to the myriad of indigenous languages that were spoken, there were several barriers to conversion in these places.

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And so what you find in rural parts of Mexico, for example in some areas, are a people who would claim to be Catholic, but really their version of Catholicism is not what you'd recognise, and it seems to be still a very mixed

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form of Catholicism, a kind of syncretic Catholicism with a lot of the old pagan beliefs thrown in. And one of the biggest differences there is the treatment of the saints.

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They're almost kind of worshipped as gods. There isn't that sense of saints as an intermediary between God and the person. Individual saints are really worshipped in the way

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that perhaps old gods might have been. It's debatable how much of the old pagan beliefs have actually continued on, but there is definitely some kind of form of mixing.

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And in some areas, chickens are sacrificed, for example, which is not very orthodox. And so, depending on where you're looking, the extent of cultural change is very, very variable.

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Back in Spain itself, there was a sense of absorption of particularly the Aztec Empire within Spain itself. And what you find is that when Spain

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starts to write a lot of chronicles and a lot of "histories" of Spain, especially in the 16th and 17th century and onward-- and what you find is that they begin their history

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with the Roman Empire, and then they continue on into Spain itself, and they incorporate the Visigothic peoples. But the Aztec Empire in particular gets kind of absorbed into the Hapsburg

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and the Spanish Empire. And Charles V is presented as the obvious and inevitable continuation of Montezuma II through emperorship, for example.

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And within accounts of the conquest, you have Montezuma accepting the conquest of this Spanish Emperor, and accepting the conquest of the Spanish Emperor.

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And so, of course, that's questionable and probably nonsense, really. And then all of that is presented firstly by Cortes, for example, who we can

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question on a number of levels. But this kind of works its way back into what becomes Spain's writing of its own history. And particularly later on as well,

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when Spain itself starts to decline, it really starts to want to present its glory days and justify almost the conquest of the New World that has actually bankrupted it really.

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So they really want to present their conquest and colonisation of the New World as a positive thing that has, in particular, brought Catholicism to these pagan people and saved all of these people in the New World

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as well. So Spain feels that its conquest was worth it and that they have done a benevolent thing by conquering and converting these people, whose souls would

00:42:59.040 - 00:43:03.590

have gone to Hell otherwise without its help, essentially.