1.6: Cultural Interactions
1.6: Explain how and why European and Native American perspectives of others developed and changed in the period.
In the last set of notes, we looked at the Spanish system of colonialism in the Americas and how it shaped the culture there and now, we’re going to look at how exactly that culture was shaped and turned out. Not just with Spanish colonialism, but with European colonialism in general as well, along with the resistance to these new realities.
After the fall of the Inca Empire in 1572, the Spanish continued to expand their empire, especially in North America, but instead of sending soldiers to conquer this time, they instead sent missionaries to convert the natives to Christianity and this new form of settlement was known as the Mission System. When these Franciscan Priests encountered various groups of Native Americans, they found themselves confronting people with fundamentally different worldviews regarding things like religion, land use, and family.
The Pueblo Revolt
The Pueblo Revolt is a prime example of a violent encounter between the Spanish and Native Americans. When the Spanish attempted to convert the Pueblo people in the American Southeast to Christianity, while many converted, the two groups had different definitions for conversion. The Pueblo people combined Christ with all of their other gods and began worshipping him alongside them but for the Spanish, they saw Christianity as an exclusive religion that required total devotion and no other gods at all. And so the priests tried to put an end to this and force singular devotion but this led to some resistance. While some kept their religious practices a secret, the biggest resistance came in the form of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 where they resisted with violence. After years of already-existing rule by the Spanish conquistadors and after the forced conversion of many Pueblo people through the Mission System and after years of drought, the Pueblo, under the leadership of one of their leaders, Popé, rose up and killed roughly 400 colonizers and burned all the churches to the ground, expelling the Spanish settlers from the area. But then 12 years later, the Spanish returned and reconquered the land.
Differences Between Europeans and Natives
Religion: The natives were mostly pantheists and animists who believed in a world filled with many spirits but the Europeans were Christian and believed in a single deity.
Land: The natives believed land was spiritual and should be shared by everyone. The Europeans believed that land should be tamed and privately owned.
Family: The natives typically had large societies of extended families held together by kinship networks. The Europeans focused mostly on the nuclear family (only parents and their children)
Labor: For the natives, work was split based on a combination of gender, age, skills, and status. For the Europeans, work was split based on gender with men mostly doing field labor and herding livestock while women were in charge of child care & household labor.
The End of Encomienda
After learning about the brutality of Spanish conquest, King Charles I assembled a group of priests, philosophers, and jurors to discuss its morality and legality. While many argued that colonization was a good thing for the natives because it gave them the riches of European civilization, Bartolomé de las Casas argued against this idea. He was a priest who had lived among the natives. Because of this, he saw firsthand how they suffered. He advocated for better treatment, believing that if the natives were treated too harshly, their souls would not be able to be saved. However, he argued that in exchange for their better treatment, Africans should be used to replace the natives for labor in the Americas. As a result, the New Laws of 1542 were implemented, which ended indigenous slavery and forced labor and began the end of the encomienda system. Now, they were being replaced by African slaves for labor in the Americas.
But despite these differences, both Europeans and Native Americans adopted some parts of each other’s cultures that were useful. For example, Native Americans wanted metal tools from the Europeans along with horses and guns for farming, hunting, and warfare. Europeans, on the other hand, wanted access to the Native American fur trade and wanted furs so they often arranged marriages with Native American women in order to be able to trade with them. These fur trades and marriages were mostly done by the French. But despite this, the Europeans still mostly saw the natives as inferior people to be exploited for personal gain.
The differences between Europeans and Native Americans would often lead to misunderstandings and resistance. Over time, peaceful encounters became less frequent. For example, the English cleared forests and built fences, often invading native land in order to do so. The Natives would often fight back and some became dependent on the Europeans for guns and ammunition.
