Conquistadors The Rise and Fall_5of6_The Growth of the Colonies
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00:00In the five long decades since Columbus's arrival, the Americas had been ravaged by
00:12the conquistadors, the crown seeking new treasures to build up and control its growing armies.
00:21Many had taken root, the conquistadors and their offspring building lives in the colonies,
00:28their cities sprouting from the ashes of Aztec and Inca settlements.
00:35Their leaders, Spaniards from modest backgrounds, striving to create a new American nobility,
00:43ruling as they saw fit.
00:45They were untouchable, or so they thought.
00:51Tales imbued with their brutality spread across Europe, souring popular perception of the
00:58empire's colonists, forcing King Philip of Spain to push new laws designed to control
01:05his itinerant soldiers.
01:09And yet, one glittering scientific discovery would transform the settlers' fortunes and
01:16alter the global economy forever.
01:20Spanish silver eventually crossing palms in all four corners of the globe.
01:26But not everyone was satisfied, some still venturing out on a desperate search for the
01:34mystical kingdom of El Dorado.
01:38History books may paint Spain's conquest of the remaining terrain as an agile land grab,
01:45but modern reassessment reveals the far more complex, messy reality of this period of change
01:52for the conquistadors, as they faced difficult terrain and staunch indigenous resistance.
02:08The reality of the conquest of the New World was far from the swift clinical operation
02:14boasted of in historic texts written to promote the mission of the conquistadors.
02:20Whilst Cortes and Pizarro had conquered and destroyed the Aztec and Inca empires, large
02:26parts of the Americas remained free of Spanish dominion for many years to come.
02:34Flamboyant Spanish literature may have claimed that the mystical golden city of El Dorado
02:39still lay in wait, but in truth, the era of exploration was coming to an end.
02:48The textbook maps that we see from our school days showing the extent of the Spanish empire
02:54tend to suggest that these empires had vast continued swaths of space and peoples that
03:01they ruled, when in fact there were vast stretches of North and South America that were only
03:09weakly if at all governed by the new empire.
03:15We think about conquistadors and we think about a complete victory over indigenous people,
03:21but the acts of conquistadors can be quite incomplete in many ways sometimes.
03:28In the southern half of Chile, the Mapuche successfully prevented the Inca from colonizing
03:35their territory.
03:37And then when the Spanish conquistadors arrived, were just as successful in keeping them out
03:41and remained in control of their lands for centuries actually, all the way until the
03:4619th century in the national period.
03:49The Mapuche became very skillful at fighting the Spaniards.
03:54Actually they adopted very quickly on the horse that ironically was brought to the new
03:59world by the Spaniards.
04:01The same thing will happen for example with the Apache and the Comanche in northern Mexico
04:06and south U.S.
04:09Other examples of regions that weren't effectively colonized or ruled are the Gran Chaco and
04:14Mucha Paraguay in the center of the South American continent.
04:18The Orinocos as well, this vast region of savannas and rainforest that's even now today
04:23amazingly intact, was not really ruled in an effective way at all.
04:31The Maya area, which is if you look geographically at the Americas, it's right slap bang in
04:36the middle, you'd think that would have been completely absorbed into the Spanish empire.
04:40Not at all.
04:42Most of it remains unconquered and inhabited by free Maya peoples for most of the colonial
04:48period.
04:49So there are enormous swaths of land and places and indigenous communities who were never
04:54fully under control of the Spaniards.
04:56That should be mapped on these textbook maps, but it's just treated as if Spain rules these
05:02vast stretches.
05:04These geographical inaccuracies also serve to omit from the history books those conquests
05:10which ended in embarrassing failure or even death for the conquistadors.
05:16I would argue that we miss the absolute messiness of what was going on in the moment.
05:21There were challenges of communication.
05:23There were long distances that had to be traversed.
05:27We might see some kind of progress of conquest from one place to another.
05:32But I think that in the moment and in the making of it, it didn't feel that way at
05:36all.
05:37And it felt much more like a kind of fragmented chipping away of things piece by piece.
05:44These kinds of expeditions don't get a lot of attention.
05:47There's not much glory there.
05:48They're kind of a grim, sad manifestation of this phenomenon as it continues and continues.
05:58One such ill-fated and often overlooked expedition was joined by a battle-scarred veteran of
06:05the Italian Wars, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.
06:11This story has come to play against the centuries-old narrative of the conquistadors and their
06:16New World heroics.
06:20Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is perhaps less storied than some of the other conquistadors
06:27because his story is a failure rather than a supposed success story.
06:32Nevertheless, I think his story is one of the most fascinating that we have from this
06:36period.
06:37In my view, it's a much more typical story of so-called conquest.
06:43Cabeza de Vaca was one of many men on an expedition led by Panfilo de Narváez in 1527, attempting
06:52to kind of duplicate some of the fabulous successes that had occurred in Tenochtitlan.
06:57Panfilo de Narváez set sail from what is today Cuba and tried to reach the coast of
07:05Mexico.
07:06However, in another sort of stunning display of how little Spaniards knew about the geography,
07:12they did not understand the currents of the Gulf of Mexico, the wind currents, and ended
07:16up landing on the western coast of what is today Florida.
07:20They had no idea where they were and soon began to encounter one stunning setback after
07:27another.
07:28They engaged militarily with Amerindians from that region.
07:33They were trounced again and again.
07:37Cabeza de Vaca describes in his narrative the awe that he felt in watching an arrow
07:43go through a trunk of a tree that was as thick as a person's body.
07:49This was the strength with which these arrows were launched.
07:52And it really does become every man for himself.
07:56Out of this entire expedition, there are only four survivors in the end.
08:01Cabeza de Vaca is one of them.
08:07The Native Americans enslaved these four individuals and so they remained there for a period of
08:12six years until they figure out a way to extricate themselves from this circumstance by turning
08:19themselves into healers.
08:23Native Americans basically forced these four individuals to perform healings.
08:29At least from the accounts that we have from the surviving Europeans, it worked.
08:35They went from slaves to really prized possessions that were passed along from one group to another.
08:43Cabeza de Vaca starts to take on this role as a healer with more enthusiasm so that after
08:48several years he's kind of adopted this role as a shaman maybe or a healer who travels
08:55with this body of people who protect him to some degree but also use him for healing.
09:05In the company of hundreds and sometimes even thousands of natives, they were able to cross
09:11from the Atlantic Ocean, from the coast of Texas as I was saying, south into what is
09:15now northern Mexico and all the way to the Pacific coast through mountains and rivers,
09:20etc.
09:21So that's how we get the first true glimpse of the interior of North America through these
09:27accounts by these four remarkable survivors.
09:33So perhaps we can think of this as a story of assimilation, but I think it's also a story
09:40of conquest in a different way.
09:42Who is really conquered in this story?
09:44Well, you might say that he has conquered the people he travels with in the sense that
09:49he's won them over.
09:50They've become his great supporters and allies, but he has also been conquered himself.
09:56He has been won over to their way of life.
09:59He's become a shaman.
10:04Most of North America remained outside of effective Spanish rule.
10:09One major exception to this was the Spanish-established forts, famously the Fort of St. Augustine
10:16on the coast of Florida, but also some forts up in the Carolinas, hoping to find mines
10:22of gold and silver.
10:32Fantasies of luxurious new lives built upon piles of gold were not the only reason expeditions
10:39ventured into uncharted territory.
10:42Other explorers had this vague sense that the Garden of Eden might still be present
10:48on the face of the earth.
10:50So one of the things that drove voyages of exploration and conquest down rivers from
10:55Ecuador or from northern Peru to Amazonia was this possibility that they might find
11:01paradise.
11:04The first ever European to explore this region and traverse the length of the mighty Amazon
11:09River on another calamitous Spanish mission was Francisco de Oriana.
11:18Oriana's journey would begin in Quito, Ecuador, and take him deep into the forests below the
11:24Andes, where his supplies would run low, leaving him to traverse the river in desperate search
11:30of food.
11:33Eventually he and his men would emerge from its mouth torn and tattered into the Atlantic
11:39before sailing on to Spain, loaded with heavily embellished tales of hordes of gold, exotic
11:46spice and dangerous encounters with a tribe of enormous, powerful women, their physical
11:53dominance reminding him of the Amazons spoken of in Greek mythology.
12:02Their control over the Americas may have been tenuous in places non-existent, but the Spanish
12:08were absorbing invaluable knowledge of the land, its wildlife and its people.
12:15They were also resigned to the disappointing reality that another great golden civilization
12:21akin to the Aztec or the Inca was little more than a myth.
12:27The phase of exploration had reached its natural end, the Spanish now intent on finding a way
12:33to govern the new world they had discovered.
12:37The thing they are most interested in is very large indigenous populations to serve
12:41as a workforce. They're also of course interested in precious metals, but they rapidly face
12:48a law of diminishing returns.
12:52There is no other great Native American empire like the Inca Empire, and so essentially they
12:59have discovered and conquered the parts of the Americas they are most interested in.
13:05It is one of those things that just dies away, because there are no longer any of these
13:12large state-size organized Native polities to confront.
13:21Over six decades of brutal conquests, having committed countless atrocities across the
13:27new world, Spain had absorbed the largest empires of the Americas, making it unmatched
13:34in its might.
13:37Considering that Spain is only just coming into existence around the time of Columbus
13:43and the early explorations in the Caribbean, its expansion and global rise as an imperial
13:51power is incredibly rapid in the early 16th century. So in the 1520s, 30s and 40s, the
13:57success of Spanish imperial expansion is really extraordinary. Spain is by far the most powerful
14:04empire. It's actually the first empire upon which the sun never sets, although the British
14:09claim that that was their idea.
14:18Europe was abuzz with resentment for the conquistadors. Conversations about ethics focused on the
14:24bleak methods used to secure their colonial power. Feeling the pressure to pull back control
14:31from those who had now been abusing their governmental roles for decades, the Spanish
14:37crown decided to pass a number of new laws, the first since the Laws of Burgos in 1512.
14:45They were designed to protect the rights of their indigenous subjects, whilst tightening
14:50the leash on the rampageous soldiers who had torn through the Americas on their king's
14:55behalf.
14:57The new laws of the Indies that were passed in 1542 are the most important example of
15:05an event in which the Spanish crown and administrators of the new empire from Spain decreed a new
15:11way of doing things in an attempt to limit the violence and the wrongs and the exploitation
15:17that were being done by the first generations of conquistadors and colonizers.
15:24These laws were much more expansive and much more designed to protect the native people
15:32from the abuses of exploitation and brutality. The crown saw their responsibility as being
15:41protectors not only of their new holdings, but of the people who populated them. And
15:46one of the things that they wanted to make sure was that these people, these native people,
15:51were Christianized and educated as subjects of the crown.
15:58One thing that they did was actually attempt to end one of the most important institutions
16:03of the conquest, encomienda, the right to receive tribute, also labor service from indigenous
16:10societies. This was a source of enormous abuse.
16:14And essentially what the new laws do is that they end the heritable nature of the encomendero
16:19system. So these huge landed estates that these kind of men had established for themselves
16:24in the Americas is no longer one which will be passed down from father to son, essentially
16:31creating a kind of noble dynasty.
16:34The conquistadors didn't like what this happened. And actually one of the most important stimulus
16:40for rebellion and for civil war in Peru in the 1540s was these new laws limiting the
16:47exploitation and also the ability to gain wealth and power that the first conquistadors,
16:53such as the Pizarro brothers, had acquired.
16:56The Spanish crown actually had to send high-ranking European officials in order to enforce the
17:04new laws. The individual who was sent to Peru was killed. He was decapitated and his head
17:12was paraded. But there was such a pushback. So what happened, for example, with the statute
17:19about the encomiendas is that they were kind of phased out. So the encomiendas would not
17:24be eliminated once and for all immediately, but they would be preserved for three lives.
17:30So in other words, during three generations. So basically, if you had an encomienda, you
17:34could pass it on to your children and your children could pass it on to their children
17:39and then the encomiendas would disappear.
17:43But many in the old country felt the new laws were too lenient. And as the 16th century
17:49reached its fifth decade, a series of heated public debates would take place. One familiar
17:57voice joined the melee. The outspoken Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas was back. Having
18:05prominently relinquished his encomienda years earlier, lobbying for the original laws of
18:11Burgos and in the meantime fighting the crown over their policy of enslaving and stealing
18:17from native people.
18:19He is involved in a famous disputation with Juan Ginés de Sepulveda in Valladolid in
18:24which they argue whether the conquest of the Americas was licit or not. Juan Ginés de
18:32Sepulveda outlines a series of arguments that the indigenous peoples were basically subhuman,
18:37that they did not possess the use of reason and therefore through this kind of idea from
18:43Aristotle of natural slavery that the inferior should yield to the superior. That becomes
18:48one of the great arguments and justifications for the Spanish presence in the Americas.
18:56Bartolomé de las Casas advocates for the rights of the Indians, the rights for them
19:04to be considered fully as Spanish subjects and therefore to enjoy all the privileges
19:09and freedoms of the law and he denounces the enslavement of indigenous people.
19:17I call the debates of 1550 perhaps a turning point or a key defining moment of early modern
19:25humanism because this is the very first moment that a committee of theologos and juristas
19:33of theologians and jurists are put together to reflect and to come up with the solution
19:41to all these claims about the injustice of the war. And this is why las Casas is such
19:46an incredible figure because he brings topics that have transcended through history, particularly
19:53today when we think about war and how people are still healing.
20:00The dispute is inconclusive, but immediately Bartolomé de las Casas publishes this short
20:06history of the destruction of the Indies. It's a vast exaggeration of the kinds of
20:10excesses and outrages and cruelty that was committed in the New World, but nevertheless
20:16it is founded on a kind of an element of truth that there were some really iniquitous and
20:21barbaric, savage behavior by the conquistadors in establishing themselves in the Americas.
20:29He goes island by island, region by region, beginning in Hispaniola about the atrocities
20:36committed by the Spanish. That bestseller that was translated into Dutch, German, Italian,
20:44Latin, French, that was the text that really marks the fall of the conquistadores publicly.
20:59Times were changing and Europe was watching. As the conquistadors began to emulate the
21:04Castilian life they had left behind, those who once wielded swords and armor were transforming
21:12into businessmen and politicians, changing the face of the New World forever.
21:20Even though they still don't have a really precise comprehension of this vast expanse,
21:26they do have a sense of the opportunity that this space offers. And they also, critically,
21:34I think have managed to create some administrative nodes. These institutions in the form of city
21:44councils, of judicial bodies, start to impose Spanish ideas about legal structures, about
21:54how processes work, about how communication is going to function into the operation of
22:00some of these American spaces. Those nodes can be really important in a landscape devastated
22:08by disease, where not just the population but the indigenous structures supported by
22:14that population have crumbled. And having a kind of rigid Spanish structure, that ends
22:22up really starting to lead to different social structures, different landscapes as they change
22:30the landscape physically with Spanish farming, new institutions that start taking root. All
22:36of that stuff really, I think, begins to alter the way that the Americas look and how they
22:43operate from within.
22:46Colonists borrowed from the culture of their former home, implementing political hierarchies,
22:52religious restrictions, and robust legal structures, built on a foundation of marginalization.
23:00This shift would provide the Crown with an opportunity, a way to finally take back control.
23:07The attempt by the Spaniards was always to replicate Spanish life in the New World, creating
23:12cities, creating churches, cathedrals, and an entire apparatus of civil and religious
23:20government. And at the same time, they tried to force all those people around them to assimilate,
23:30let's say, into the Spanish way of life, and that meant evangelization, that meant dress
23:35codes, to become like a close copy of the Spaniards without ever granting them equality.
23:43The Crown worked to establish a judicial system on the mainland known as the Audiencia, high
23:49courts which sought to administer justice and put an end to abuses of power, which also
23:55acted as an advisory board to the royal viceroys.
24:00The first generation of conquistadors, if you will, from Columbus himself through to
24:05Pizarro and, you know, the conquest of the Inca Empire, that time, that period where
24:12these men are acting with a great deal of autonomy and independence begins to come to
24:17an end with the establishments of the Audiencias, which allow both Spanish subjects living there
24:23but also indigenous people to appeal to law and to use the law to protect their own interests
24:29as against the kind of rapacity of certain unscrupulous individuals.
24:36With only a few exceptions, the decision of the Audiencia was final. By 1550, six had
24:47been established across the Americas, including in Mexico, Lima and Guatemala.
24:55In areas where there is no settled kind of state, there is no political structure for
25:01the Spanish to kind of insert themselves into, they essentially have to build fortresses.
25:08They build fortresses in order to try to control the territory, these presidios, and basically
25:12they're military garrisons so that, to keep lines of communication and trade open so that
25:17they can, you know, move goods through those areas, areas where there are often hostile,
25:24you know, indigenous tribal groups who might attack or kill those people.
25:29As the cultural practices of continental Spain flooded the colonies, a vile racial
25:38hierarchy emerged.
25:41So it's really very much about transplanting, in a way, the class structure of Spain, the
25:47kind of grandees, the upper nobility, into the context of the New World. The Spanish
25:54encouraged intermarriage between the people who are higher up in the military hierarchy
25:58and the daughters, particularly, of the local caciques, the indigenous chieftains and tribal
26:04leaders.
26:06By the middle of the 16th century, the Spanish colonial society had begun to develop its
26:13own complex social racial hierarchy.
26:17The most important thing here to put you at the top of the social hierarchy was lineage.
26:24In other words, that you were Spanish or you have a big amount of Spanish blood.
26:32The most common categories of the system included Spaniards at the top, españoles, at the very
26:38bottom would be Africans, and then above them, indios. But they also included a number of
26:45categories to designate the individuals who are born of mixed ancestry between those founding
26:52populations of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. The two most common ones were mestizos,
26:59those born of Spanish and indigenous relationships, and mulatos, which could be born of either
27:05relationships between Spaniards and Africans or between Africans and indigenous peoples.
27:13The legal system applied different privileges and obligations to each of the different racial
27:21groups in colonial society. Africans and indigenous peoples tended to have the most obligations
27:28or restrictions placed upon them by virtue of their racial category, whereas Spaniards
27:32and to a lesser extent mestizos had fewer restrictions or obligations placed upon them
27:38and had more privileges that they could benefit from.
27:43I think that for us, in retrospect, the intolerance of Spaniards is very visible. I am not sure
27:53that it was always racial contempt in the way we understand it. I think it became racial
27:58contempt. I think a lot of the early contempt was really about religion. The contempt that
28:05Spaniards felt for people who practiced human sacrifice or who practiced idolatry in their
28:12views, that would go on to create really strong barriers, sort of interpersonal barriers,
28:20the sense of, you are not like me, I think.
28:26The colonial industries had grown vital for Europe's continued prosperity, and those industries
28:33had come to rely almost entirely on one of humanity's bleakest creations, slavery.
28:42At least 200,000, maybe even half a million, enslaved Nicaraguans ended up working in the
28:49gold fields or on plantations in the Antilles on the Caribbean islands. Even larger numbers
28:56sailed with conquistadors to the Isthmus of Panama, where they were used as beasts of
29:01burden, so to speak, carrying things back and forth from the Caribbean to the Pacific
29:06coast.
29:07Peoples from what is now southern Chile are being shipped all the way to Peru, for example.
29:14Very early on, the greatest demand for African slavery was in Mexico and Peru, what are today
29:21Mexico and Peru. There are millions of people who are transported over time, and we know
29:28that the loss of life is tremendous across these voyages.
29:33In many contexts, Africans and Native Americans worked side by side. They worked side by side
29:40in Spanish homes. If they were living in the city, they worked side by side on rural estates,
29:45whether it's sugar plantation or livestock ranches or farms. As a result, Africans and
29:53Native Americans very frequently formed common cause and even formed multi-ethnic families.
30:02In fact, many descendants of enslaved Africans learn indigenous languages and form families
30:09with indigenous people in Spanish America.
30:23Popular literature has, for centuries, pushed a particular vision of the legend of the conquistadors,
30:32one of white European bravery and cunning in the face of a savage, undeveloped new world.
30:39But these embellished accounts often fail to mention the other characters who played
30:43a role in Spain's empire, evidence of their involvement offering a fresh perspective on
30:50the conquest and colonization of the Americas.
30:54In terms of where conquistadors came from, in terms of their national identity, most
30:58obviously they were Spaniards. As Spain came into being and created an empire, conquistadors
31:06also could be Portuguese, they could be Italian. And once we get to the new world, conquistadors
31:12are also of African descent. They could be free, they could be African slaves that fight
31:18and then win their freedom as a result of fighting.
31:22Someone who defies our idea or expectation of what a conquistador looks like would be,
31:28for example, Juan Garrido. Juan Garrido was an African man born in the Kingdom of Congo,
31:35he was a free man, and he arrived in Hispaniola around 1502 approximately, and he participated
31:43in expeditions in Puerto Rico and Cuba as a conquistador. He joined the forces of Cortes
31:50and participated in the conquest of Mexico in 1519.
31:55In the wake of the conquest, he acts like many other Spanish conquistadors. He's active
32:01in trying to secure special rights and privileges for having served in the conquest.
32:08Juan Garrido is far from the stereotypical conquistador that the average person actually
32:12has in mind, but it represents the diversity that we encounter sometimes in these expeditions,
32:18in these groups.
32:20We don't know how many conquistadors of African descent there were because the Spaniards were
32:27generally reluctant to give credit to other people. I suspect that because we know why
32:34they weren't generally given as much credit as non-Africans were, and because we have
32:39examples of specific individuals and their names, I suspect that there were many more
32:43than we realized.
32:47Thinking about conquistadors that probably defy our expectations, I think possibly Catalina
32:52de Auzo is one of the most interesting characters in the entire colonial period.
32:58She doesn't fight as a woman. She dresses up as a man in Spain and takes passage to
33:05the Americas, and lives in the Americas for many years as a man. She adopts her brother's
33:11name.
33:12She became a soldier. She fought in the Chilean frontier. It came to a point in which she
33:18was discovered. Even though she was dressed as a man and breaking the laws, thanks to
33:23the fact that she was still a virgin, Catholics put a lot of stock into this at the time,
33:28therefore she had preserved the most important aspect of her womanhood. So she was actually
33:33taken to Spain, where the king gave her permission to actually dress like a man for the rest
33:39of her life.
33:41It's a wonderful and complicated story, I think, because she's a conquistador that confounds
33:45all our expectations of what a conquistador should be, but at the same time helps us to
33:50see how there are certain kinds of roles, and this sort of stereotype of just who these
33:55Spanish men were and what they had achieved in the Americas.
34:04The conquistadors were about to unlock the full potential of the precious metal held
34:11in the depths of the Cerro Rico, in PotosĂ, Bolivia. By 1554, an efficient method of extracting
34:20silver had been developed, allowing production across Spanish mines to increase relentlessly
34:25year on year. And Cerro Rico held more silver than anywhere else across the New World.
34:34The irony is that in the end, finally the Spanish found the precious metal, but it wasn't
34:39gold. The real gold of the New World was silver.
34:45The Spaniards discovered this mountain in the middle of the Andes called PotosĂ. The
34:50city of PotosĂ became possibly one of the most important places in global history,
34:58and it's hard to overemphasize this point. PotosĂ became during the late 16th century
35:06possibly the main producer of silver in the world. PotosĂ was the main mine, but it was
35:12not the only one. There were many other mines in the Andes. So mines and mining towns became
35:18the engine of the entire colonial economy. And it was actually extracted through indigenous
35:24labor, forced indigenous labor.
35:26It's understood that perhaps some eight million people died in the mining of silver. People
35:31were compelled to work in the mines for essentially forever. It was in large part this silver
35:39that was used to finance the slave trade. To me it's devastating to think about the
35:43ways in which the exploitation of one group was used to finance the exploitation of another.
35:50And yet these two twin engines of silver and slavery were really what allowed the Spanish
35:57economy to boom in this time period.
36:05At its peak, the mining city established in PotosĂ was home to up to 160,000 people,
36:15a jumble of Spaniards, indigenous Americans, and African slaves. The city ran off their
36:22backs, workers each expected to shift ore through the dark, cramped mine shafts to the
36:30surface. Every back-breaking day, death hung over the miners, never waiting long to claim
36:37its next victim. The work never ceased. PotosĂ's 22 dams powered 140 mills, which ground down
36:49the extracted ore before it was chemically converted into the precious silver.
36:56The coins extracted in mines like PotosĂ and other mines both in Mexico and Peru, that
37:03silver and those silver pesos became the main currency in many places in the world. And
37:10even the English and the French used it because it was a trusted currency. And therefore it
37:14became a very important vehicle for global exchange.
37:19The priority of the Spanish crown during this time is going to be to organize the entire
37:25Spanish system around the protection of the silver fleets.
37:32In the 16th century, you have a massive need for silver and gold, particularly in order
37:38to keep armies in the field. Soldiers are very problematic when they don't get paid
37:43and when they don't eat. And the Spanish are a predominant military power in Western Europe.
37:50Spanish galleons were loaded with silver and other luxuries of the new world, invigorating
37:57the empire's economy and keeping Spanish soldiers marching forward.
38:03The Spanish articulated their transatlantic trade with their colonies in the form of a
38:09monopoly. The colonies were only authorized to trade with Spain. Two fleets were sent
38:15annually to the Americas with manufactured goods and those were to be exchanged by products
38:24in the Americas. This obviously did not satisfy colonists because the prices were extraordinarily
38:32inflated.
38:34The other kind of crucial thing is in territories as vast as Latin America, it's almost impossible
38:42in the age of sale to impose any kind of effective control on trade. So increasingly piracy,
38:49contraband, illegal trading are completely ubiquitous in this time. It poses a growing
38:57problem because it's only through official trade that the royal authorities get the royal
39:00fifth and that's where a lot of the income and wealth that the crown derives from the
39:05new world comes from.
39:12Decades on from Queen Isabella's death, King Philip still wished to fulfill his great grandmother's
39:18dream of finding a swift trade route to Asia.
39:24By order of the crown, five ships captained by local magistrate Miguel Lopez de Legazpi
39:31set off from Mexico. Their task, locate and acquire a significant share of the lucrative
39:38eastern spice trade. The Spanish would establish a colony in Cebu, with Legazpi naming the
39:47islands in honor of his king, Philip II.
39:52It had taken them over 70 years, but the Philippines were now yet another arm of the empire and
40:00an important new base for Spain.
40:03Manila, the city founded by the Spanish, which became the capital, emerged very rapidly as
40:09one of the most important ports of trade, linking not only Mexico and the Americas to
40:16Asia directly via galleons that would sail back and forth, but also became an important
40:23port of trade for overseas trade in Southeast Asia, in the South China Sea, in the Indian
40:30Ocean itself.
40:35This bullion also provided the opportunity to establish connections with the most lucrative
40:41trade in the world, that with China itself.
40:48China could not get enough silver, it became like a silver sink, either directly across
40:54the Pacific, through these Manila galleons, or indirectly through Europe.
40:59China with its silks, with its exotic woods, furniture, art pieces, clothing, etc., which
41:08were extraordinarily lucrative when they were sold again in Europe, in parts of the Indian
41:14Ocean world, but just as much in Acapulco and other cities of Mexico and the Spanish
41:22governed new world.
41:23In fact, most of the silver that was produced during this era actually ended up on not the
41:29European side of the world, but the Asian side of the world, and this is important to
41:33the development of China and India as societies, as economies, as polities, turning them into
41:41economic powerhouses, or strengthening them beyond what they already were.
41:48One should think of these conquests as creating the world's first genuinely global economy,
41:56and the world's first genuinely global economic superpowers, besides their political importance,
42:05their social importance, and their cultural importance.
42:08The conquest and colonization proper for the archipelago of islands known today as
42:15the Philippines, in many ways, marks the ending of the period of conquest from the perspective
42:21of the Spanish Empire.
42:28Nearly a century had passed since Columbus claimed Hispaniola, the empire whose expansion
42:34he had mistakenly initiated, now reaching the peak of its power. But with success came
42:43criticism. Spain's enemies flooding Europe with hyperbolic nightmares, propaganda designed
42:51to foster fear, vilifying its people and its culture.
42:57Meanwhile, a rift was growing between the crown and its new world colonies. The conquistadors
43:05descendants rising to power, ready and willing to fight for their autonomy, finally freeing
43:11themselves from the shackles of an archaic monarchy. The king didn't know it yet, but
43:18the fortunes of his mighty Spanish Empire were teetering in the balance.