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DREAMS OF EMPIREThe Legacies of Contact

BY SHERRY JOHNSON

tuce. Alongside is a simmering casserole of bakedbeans flavored with brown sugar. Since it’s summer,bags of potato chips and corn chips are ready to betorn open by eager hands. Dad lounges in a ham-mock strung between two trees while the kids go outin the canoe. Everyone enjoys the sunny weather,despite weather bureau reports of a far-off Carib-bean hurricane.

At a holiday picnic, few Floridians today pauseto ponder the evolution of many American tradi-tions that are a consequence of European arrival

“PREPARING BREAD.” GIROLAMO BENZONI (D. 1528). LA HISTORIA DEL MONDO NUOVO, (1572), JAY I. KISLAK FOUNDATION, INC. (CHECKLIST 18).

The Fourth of July in Florida is truly an Ameri-can holiday. Whether the celebration is conductedon the beaches of Miami, at a picnic table nearLake Okeechobee, or standing on the old Barrancasin Pensacola, the celebration will likely be very simi-lar. Friends and family gather to celebrate, tablesand chairs are set up awaiting the feast. A plate ofhamburgers and pork ribs await preparation on thebarbecue, a basket of whole-wheat buns await thefinished burgers. A variety of relishes, onion, pepper,and olives sit beside, with a tray of tomatoes and let-

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in the Americas more than 500 years ago. Yet thelegacies of Old World/New World contact sur-round us: in our words, foods, householdobjects, place names and even the values and be-liefs we hold. The meeting of Old and NewWorlds brought about political, social, eco-nomic, cultural, environmental and biologicalconsequences that neither world could haveforeseen.

Old World Antecedents and Contact

Contact between Europe and the Americasresulted from Old World events at the end of thefifteenth century that would set the stage for Co-lumbus’ voyage. At that time, trade to Europe

flowed from the Eastern Mediterranean region inthe hands of Mongols, who, allied with Italianmerchants, created a monopoly in the trade ofluxury goods. Disaster struck in 1458 whenConstantinople fell to Turkish (Muslim) control.The Turks allowed Italian trade to continue, butgoods became prohibitively expensive. There-fore, Europeans began to search for new routes tothe East.

The person most responsible for promoting ex-ploration was Portugal’s Prince Henry theNavigator (1394–1460). While oddly named forsomeone who never sailed out of the sight of land,Henry made Portugal the leading nation in mari-time discoveries in the late 1400s. His maincontribution was encouraging development of

“METHOD OF SLEEPING IN THE GULF OF PARIA AND OTHER PLACES.” GIROLAMO BENZONI (D. 1528). LA HISTORIA DEL MONDO NUOVO, (1572), JAY I. KISLAK

FOUNDATION, INC. (CHECKLIST 18).

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navigational skills in a mariners’ school in Sagres onthe southern Atlantic coast. From Portuguese portsa continuing stream of ships sailed down the coastof Africa, where they set up trading posts to trade forgold with native African chiefs.

As voyagers returned successfully to Portugueseports, cartographers drew upon their knowledge tocreate better maps of the Atlantic. Henry’s schoolalso supported technological innovation, improv-ing the astrolabe and compass. Another advancewas the development of more seaworthy shipscalled caravelles with deep-keel hulls, large sturdyrudders and improved triangular lateen sails. Portu-guese advances continued through the fifteenthcentury when Bartolomeo Diaz reached the south-ern tip of Africa. Following his lead, Vasco de Gamarounded the coast of Africa and reached India, re-turning to Lisbon with two shiploads of preciousspices. Ironically, the success of the Portuguese insailing east to the Orient caused them to turn downthe biggest opportunity of all—sponsoring the west-ward exploration of Christopher Columbus.

The Spanish monarchs, Isabela and Ferdinand,must have been in a good mood when Columbus,an obscure Genoese navigator and veteran of Por-tuguese voyages throughout the Atlantic, made onelast plea for financing for a proposed voyage insearch of a western passage to Cipango (Japan) andCathay (China). Columbus was persistent; he hadalready sought support from the Portuguese mon-arch and the courts of England and France. ButSpain was in a jubilant mood, having just accom-plished its goal of expelling the Muslims after nearlyeight centuries. Thus, in 1492, Columbus receivedauthority to sail and financial backing to constructand outfit ships for his voyage. Columbus was an ex-tremely lucky fellow. He clearly built on theknowledge, experience and technological advancesof his Portuguese colleagues, but fortune and cir-cumstance made him the person whose namewould go down in history.

Columbus’ expeditions brought together morethan two different worlds. Far from being homo-geneous, both Europe and the Americas werecharacterized by variety. In the Americas, largesedentary populations existed only in Mexico andPeru. Other settled societies of far less complexitylived in the Caribbean islands and on the Florida

peninsula. The Europeans, for their part, werecharacterized by heterogeneity too, based uponreligion, language, culture and differing goals ofimperial expansion.

Contact between civilizations occurred on themorning of October 12, 1492, in the present-dayBahama Islands. The people who greeted the Euro-peans, the Lucayans, a subgroup of the indigenousCaribbean Taíno, were a group of agriculturists wholived in a non-threatening environment. At first,they did not fear the Europeans; rather they ex-pected to trade with them as they had with anextensive pan-Caribbean trading network whichhad been in place for centuries. Indeed, the natives

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. DE INSULIS NUPER IN MARI INDICO REPERTIS.JAY I. KISLAK FOUNDATION, INC.

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of the circum-Caribbean area engaged in long dis-tance trade in huge dugout canoes holding as manyas fifty rowers. One of the most visible remainders ofthe interconnectedness of the native societies is theball game played in some form by indigenousgroups from Tikal to Tallahassee. Columbus, erro-neously believing that he made it to the East Indies,named the people Indians.

The original inhabitants of the Caribbean islandsand Florida peninsula are long gone, but the Euro-peans borrowed many of their words and habits. Theingenious idea of roasting game on a rack directlyover a fire had not occurred to Europeans, and fromthe practice came the Spanish word barbacoa orbarbecue. Caribbean natives ingeniously wove to-gether fiber (probably from the ceiba tree) into anet-like structure, a hamaca or hammock, that wassuspended between two trees. The hammock per-mitted the natives to sleep outside in the cool air butoff the sandy ground where they would be prey to in-sects. By the eighteenth century, the use ofhammocks for sleeping and storage had becomecommonplace in the British royal navy.

The name for the destructive storm, huracán, isstill used much more often than its official scientificdesignation, tropical cyclone. Miami, Tallahassee,Apalachicola, Ocala and the names of innumerableother towns and villages throughout Florida are per-haps the most visible manifestation of the legacy ofthe Florida native people.

The Biological Revolution

As they began to colonize the Americas, theSpanish tried to recreate their familiar Old Worldway of life. Consequently, they usually brought withthem virtually everything to duplicate what theyhad left behind. To begin, the Europeans neededlarge animals for transportation and food, and byColumbus’ second voyage in 1493, they broughthorses, pigs, cattle, goats, oxen and chickens. Largedogs were particularly important to the Spaniards intheir warfare against rebellious native tribes. Thesecond voyage also introduced wheat, olive treesand grape vines in an attempt to reproduce thestaples of the Spanish diet: bread, wine and olives.The sandy acidic soils of the Caribbean were notconducive to European agriculture, but as Euro-

pean settlement moved outward from the initialtowns on Hispaniola to the mainland, gradually Eu-ropean staples began to take hold. Complementarycrops such as oranges, lemons, bananas, figs, rad-ishes, onions and salad greens rounded out theSpanish dietary array. More important in terms ofeconomic exploitation were the cash crops they in-troduced—sugar and coffee—that would come torepresent the basis of wealth in the Caribbeanwhere the precious metals were quickly exhausted.

The indigenous societies had survived for cen-turies on a very different diet. Their mostimportant carbohydrates were maize or corn inCentral America; the white potato in the Andeanregion; manioc in the Caribbean and Amazon ba-sin; and the sweet potato throughout theAmericas. The had many varieties of beans: string,kidney, lima, navy and butter beans were the mostcommon. Waterfowl, fish and shellfish, and ro-dents supplied additional protein. The Americasalso had a wide array of seasoning crops for vari-ety. The most important were chili peppers,tomato, vanilla, cacao and pineapple.

No large animals inhabited the Americas. Theclosest substitute was the llama or alpaca of the highAndes, but these animals were rarely used as foodand lacked the transportation benefits of horsesbecause they would not carry packs over about 75pounds. Their major contribution was their silky furthat was woven into cloth. Most native Americansocieties exploited only small animals, and only insmall number.

The most important nonfood crops were to-bacco, cochineal and cacao. Tobacco was smoked,ground and inhaled by the Amerindians. When itwas brought back to Europe, it became in instantsuccess—so much so that it was one of the primaryreasons many international territorial rivalries in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Cochineal, ared dye made from the bodies of beetles that inhabitthe nopal cactus in Mexico, became that area’s sec-ond most important export (after silver) and fueledthe textile industry in Northern Europe. Cacao, animportant food crop was also important for the ex-port trade. In its pure form, ground into powder andinfused in a bitter drink, it was a status item for theAztec. Its bitter flavor disgusted Europeans, butcombined with another New World product,

“SLAVES MINING GOLD IN CUBA.” N.H. CADY, The American Continent and its Inhabitants Before its Discovery by Columbus, ROBIN GOODFELLOW AND ANNIE C. CADY,PHILADELPHIA, GEBBIE&CO., 1983. JAY I. KISLAK FOUNDATION, INC.

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vanilla, and an Old World staple, sugar, it formed adelightful luxury item, chocolate, that appealed toa growing affluent European public.

Far more sinister than the corn or potatoes thatbecame staples of the European diet, or horses anddogs that helped bring down the Aztec empire,were the disease migrations between the worlds.The American Indians had no immunity to Euro-pean diseases and the results were devastating totheir population. The first disease to affect Carib-bean people was an upper respiratory disease,probably influenza, that arrived in 1506. Smallpoxarrived in the Caribbean in 1519 and became themost effective ally of Hernándo Cortés in the con-quest of Mexico. It also preceded Francisco Pizzaroto Peru, where it decimated the Inca leadership andprecipitated a crisis in royal succession, thus mak-ing conquest relatively easy.

Measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhus andthe bubonic plague all contributed to the decima-tion of the native populations in the Americas in thesixteenth century. Yellow fever and malaria arrivedvia the slave trade in the seventeenth century. Eu-ropean and African diseases were a major factor inthe decline of American Indian societies. The NewWorld repaid the European invaders with anequally-deadly disease, syphilis, contracted by Co-lumbus’ sailors on their first voyage and transportedback to the Old World. By 1495, it had begun tospread throughout Europe.

Almost as deadly to American society was theintroduction of European agricultural and landmanagement practices. The symbol of Europeanstatus was the city, and upon arrival in any areathe first act was to found a town. Almost immedi-ately, Europeans began cutting forests andclearing land. The Spanish also allowed theirlarge animals to run wild and trample nativeplants. In 1493, sugar was introduced into thetropical lowlands of the Caribbean basin. The im-portation of European food crops, despite theirfailure to take hold on the Caribbean islands, nev-ertheless interfered with native agriculturalsystems. Indiscriminate mining practices causedsoil erosion and native crop failure, thus contrib-uting to significant population decline. Uponarrival in the Valley of Mexico, the Spanishdrained Lake Texcoco and filled in the swampy

area surrounding the Aztec capital, causing severeecological degradation to that area.

Social Mixture

BY THE 1470S, as they traveled around the Africancoast, the Portuguese established coastal settle-ments to provision their ships and trade for gold. Assugar spread westward across the Mediterraneanand into the Atlantic islands, increasingly the avail-able labor supply proved insufficient. Thepopulation of Africa was large, and African chiefsbegan trading “surplus” people to Europeans, thusinitiating the practice of African enslavement byEuropeans.

With Columbus’ arrival in the Bahamas, Euro-pean men began sexual relations with Amerindianwomen, through both marriage and more casualrelations. While one result was the spread of syphi-lis to Europe, a larger consequence was apopulation phenomenon unequalled anywhereelse in the world: the emergence of mixed-bloodpeople called mestizos.

While the mixed-blood population grew, the na-tive population declined precipitously. Officially,the Spanish Crown forbade the enslavement of theIndians; they were to be treated with “benign sub-jugation”. Under the laws of the day, soldiers couldenslave captives from battle if they failed to convertto Christianity. As the populations on the majorCaribbean islands declined, the Bahamas andFlorida became prime slave-raiding areas.

In 1502 the first permanent governor, Nicolás deOvando, arrived on Hispaniola. He was under or-ders to treat the Indians well but had no specificinstructions on how to deal with resistance. This ex-pedition included Bartolomé de Las Casas, whoarrived with hopes of obtaining an encomienda andparticipated in the conquest of Cuba. He would be-come the foremost advocate of humane treatmentfor the Indians. Ovando’s lieutenant, Diego deVelázquez, sought to bring the Cuban Indians un-der control and after landing on the eastern tip of theisland he began his march to the west. According toeyewitness accounts, the Cuban chiefs greeted himand his men with a banquet which the Spanish ac-cepted. After the banquet, the Spaniards got up andslaughtered the Indians, astutely eliminating the

“LAS CASAS BEWAILING THE CRUELTY OF THE SPANISH” (SEE ILLUSTRATION CAPTION ON PAGE 25 FOR SOURCE INFORMATION). JAY I. KISLAK FOUNDATION, INC.

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aristocracy of Indian society and therefore the Indianresistance. Reputedly, Las Casas was so horrified bythe wholesale slaughter of the naive Cuban Indianshe renounced his encomienda and took up the clothof the priesthood. He spent the remainder of his longlife championing their interests, thus earning him thetitle Protector of the Indians.

One of the solutions Las Casas offered to theproblem of Indian enslavement was a labor substi-tute, African slaves. Although the first Africanslaves were brought to the Caribbean in 1518,large-scale slavery was associated primarily withsugar cultivation and initially was of less impor-tance in the New World than other forms ofeconomic production. An event that would changethis was a 1570 slave revolt that destroyed the Por-tuguese colony of Sao Tomé off the west coast ofAfrica. The Portuguese transferred their majorsugar-producing areas to Brazil and with it the in-stitution of African slavery jumped the ocean andwas transplanted into the Americas. Ultimately,with the help of the Dutch, sugar productionmoved up the Caribbean islands to Martinique,Cuba and Jamaica. African slavery followed and assugar expanded the last major ethnic group en-tered the Caribbean in large numbers. With theslave trade, plants, animals and organisms native toAfrica entered the gene pools of the Americas.

Thus, one of the major legacies of contact was thebiological unification of the world. Plants, animals,pathogens and people traveled in both directionsacross the Atlantic with dramatic consequences forboth worlds.

Consequences of Contact

For the Amerindian societies the most visiblechange was in population. The Caribbean peopledisappeared rapidly and completely. By the 1560sthe island societies were virtually eradicated. In theprocess the Taíno language did not survive andonly remnants of their culture exist today. TheCarib were a bit more fortunate. Because of theirhostility toward the Spanish, they were able to holdout in the Leeward islands, out of the mainstreamof Spanish settlement. They also formed relationswith black slaves and a colony of Black Carib sur-vives in Dominica today.

In Florida the natives held on somewhat longer,but by 1763 the last remaining Florida Indiansevacuated to Cuba with the Spanish. In Mexicoand Central America, the indigenous populationdeclined initially but subsequently regained num-bers after 1700. The Inca of Peru were less affectedbecause of their isolation; the number of indig-enous people in that area remains high. Other areaswere relatively unaffected by Spanish influences.Some of the more remote societies—in the Ama-zon basin, for instance—did not come into contactwith Europeans until the late nineteenth century.

Spain remained dominant in the New Worlduntil 1821. The Spanish transferred a politicalstructure designed to incorporate American hold-ings into their imperial system. The economy wasstructured around mercantilism in which the colo-nies provided raw materials for the mother countryand received finished goods in return, thus retard-ing colonial economic development. One of themost visible legacies of Spanish rule is its culture,particularly in areas where Roman Catholicism ispredominant and millions of people continue tospeak Spanish.

Of course, there were also consequences for Eu-rope. In the political arena, Spain was the dominantpower on the continent from 1505 until 1620. Theeconomic consequences revolved around an influxof precious metals that changed the Europeaneconomy. The arrival of so much silver into Europehad a trickle-down effect since Spain spent its silveralmost faster than it received it. Two of the greatestbeneficiaries were the Dutch and British. Spanishsilver, it is argued, contributed significantly to therise of capitalism in Northern Europe. Greaterwealth led to better living conditions and increasedpopulation.

The areas of the New World not under effectiveSpanish control attracted other European nations,especially France and England, challengers ofSpain’s sovereignty in the Americas. In religiousmatters, Spain became the defender—and perhapssavior—of Catholicism in Europe. Only throughthe large amounts of gold and silver arriving fromthe New World could Spain launch acounterchallenge to the Protestant Reformation.

New World discoveries inspired an intellectualrevival in Spain. As new lands were discovered, bet-

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ter maps were drawn, and the recent invention ofthe printing press allowed the news of discoveries tospread throughout Europe. Amerigo Vespucci, aMediterranean trader and pilot in Spanish employ,lent his name to the new continent with the help ofa geographer, Martin Waldseemüller, who namedthe southern hemisphere of the New WorldAmerica in his honor. Maritime voyages also led toastronomical discoveries such as the SouthernCross and to better navigational devices.

By Columbus’ fourth voyage, both Portugueseand Spanish navigators were well on their way tounderstanding wind and water currents across theAtlantic Ocean. Advances in medicine were madepossible with the discovery of new plants and heal-ing techniques. The New World became theinspiration for a golden age in literature and drama,and the wealth of the Spanish court attracted tal-ented men and women who sought patrons tosponsor their creations.

Contact also stimulated theological discussion,especially after the discovery of a world so com-pletely separate from the known world at the time.Questions arose such as: Who are the Indians andwhere did they come from? How should they betreated? Could they and/or should they be en-slaved? Were they to be free men or, as Aristotleproposed, natural slaves? The rivalry betweenChurch and encomenderos for the use of Indian la-bor began almost with the first missionaries to theCaribbean, and the issue was complicated becauseof the debate over the issue of the humanity of theAmerindians. The greatest champion of the Indi-ans, Bartolomé de Las Casas, returned to Spainwhere he spoke and wrote forcefully that theAmerindians were capable of converting peacefullyand that forced conversion and enslavement shouldbe stopped.

But abuse continued, despite a Papal Bull in1537 that decreed that the Indians were indeed hu-man, not animals. The debate reached its heightduring the 1560s between Las Casas and theologianJuan Gines de Sepúlveda, who promoted the Aris-totelian doctrine of natural slavery based on theunnatural practices of the Indian people, particu-larly cannibalism. After a series of debates betweenthe two men in the Spanish city of Valladolid in1555, the Spanish monarch declared that conquest

should be halted, but it did little to stop the popu-lation decline. By the time of the debates, theCaribbean Indians were on their way to virtual ex-tinction. Spain’s rivals in Europe seized on LasCasas’ speeches and writings and the Valladolid de-bates as evidence of Spanish cruelty. In particular,the British, engaged in a fierce struggle with Spainover religion and maritime supremacy, began to useLas Casas’ propaganda to justify their challenges toSpain. The so-called “Black Legend” of Spanishcruelty became a rationale for British actions. Fivecenturies later, the Black Legend persists.

Amerindian Expectations

What did the arrival of peculiar looking peoplewith extraordinary light skin and elaborate clothingsignify to the Caribbean and Florida natives? Asidefrom their odd appearance, the Taíno and theirbrethren were probably not unduly alarmed sincethey were used to strangers coming to their territo-ries to trade. Throughout the Caribbean, Florida,Gulf of Mexico and Yucatan peninsula, lively tradenetworks had existed for centuries allowing the ex-change of products and cultural innovations.Visitors were greeted with food, lodging and thesexual favors of the host village’s young women.

The Caribbean hosts were clearly unpreparedwhen their European guests began behaving in avery ungracious manner. First, they demanded goldin return for worthless trinkets. Worse still, they be-gan to interfere with the social, cultural andpolitical structures of native societies by demandingthat the natives discard their old beliefs in favor ofa new system, Christianity. Since native religionwas so closely tied to political power and the socialhierarchy and since the visitors were so obstinate,their arrival signified much more than the desire fortrade. Eventually, the native populations came torealize that the arrival of the Europeans would chal-lenge their very way of life. The awareness was notenough to save them.

European Dreams of Empire

Contact between the two worlds occurred duringthe rise of Europe’s nation states, when territory andpower was transferred out of hands of local nobles

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and consolidated in a strong monarchical dynasty.With the marriage of Isabel and Ferdinand in 1469,Spain became one of the first European nations toembark on the course of unification. Once thepower of the Spanish nobility had been curtailed,the Catholic Kings, as the pair was known, couldturn to other issues, most importantly the eradica-tion of the last Moslem stronghold in Spain,Granada. In January 1492, their efforts were success-ful and Granada fell to their combined armies.

The importance to the future of European-American interaction was that the 750-year effortagainst the Moslems had left Spain with the ideo-logical and cultural baggage of the glorification ofmilitary service and the exploits of military heroes,as portrayed in the national epic poem, El Cid.Spain was also left with an unwavering belief, bor-dering on fanaticism, in the infallibility ofCatholicism. Both of these cultural traits wouldshape the Spanish experience in the New World.

In response to Portugal’s challenge, the politicalreality of the day also demanded that Spain gain le-gitimate title to the newly-discovered lands from themost powerful person in Europe, the Pope. Astrong, political alliance between Spain and Romeemerged in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. In returnfor Spain’s promise to convert the people they en-countered, the Pope legitimized Spain’s claim bydividing the world in two. Spain received sover-eignty over the western half of the world andPortugal over the eastern portion, Africa and mostof Brazil. Ever mindful of her responsibility, Spainwould become the champion of Catholicism inboth hemispheres. The plunder of silver fromMexico and Peru allowed her to embark upon a se-ries of costly European wars to eradicate theProtestant challenge.

The major antagonists to such arbitrary divi-sion—France, England and ultimatelyHolland—refused to acknowledge Spain’s exclusiv-ity in the New World. Almost from the outset theychallenged Spain’s territorial rights. Reportedly,when hearing of the Papal mandate, the Frenchking, Francis I, responded that he wanted to see theclause in Adam’s will that excluded him from ashare of the newly-found lands. Perhaps as early as1504, France sent ships to the Caribbean and toBrazil; their seizure of the first treasure ships in 1523

stimulated enormous interest in the New World.Many voyages of plunder operated without govern-ment sanction, but European rulers quicklyrealized the utility of having private vessels harassthe Spanish for private gain in the interest of na-tional policy. So the governments of France,England and Holland began granting royal sanc-tion to pirates, with official documents called lettersof marque stating that a ship sailed with royal ap-proval. By the sixteenth century, the Frenchdeveloped two mechanisms of harassment: small-scale expeditions in peacetime conducting tradeand barter with out-of-the way settlements, andlarge-scale wartime expeditions mounted by royalwarships like that of Jacques Sores that plunderedand burned Havana in 1555.

The challenge to Spain also had an ideologicaldimension. Protestant French sailors consideredtheir attacks a personal crusade. Religious zealotswere also useful to the French queen, Catherine deMedici, who in 1565 sent them to establish a settle-ment in Florida. Under their famous leader, JeanRibault, they founded the first French colony inFlorida, Fort Caroline, at the mouth of St. JohnsRiver. Spain’s response was quick and brutal. PedroMenéndez de Avilés was granted permission tofound a Catholic colony at St. Augustine andquickly crushed the French settlement with legend-ary brutality. Spain’s exclusivity in the New World,for a while, was safe.

While France was busy harassing Spanish shipsand settlements, England was not yet a seafaringpower. The English shipped cloth, primarily wool-ens, to the Dutch city of Antwerp and establishedmerchant houses there. But as the fortunes ofAntwerp declined, English merchants sought othermarkets for their goods. They first sailed to the eastto Russia, where on the treacherous North Sea theygained experience in seamanship and navigation.Once ready to test tropical waters, they branchedout across the Atlantic, where they traded forcochineal, tobacco, sugar, hides and cacao, promot-ing new tastes and demands in England.

English population growth was resulting in theeviction of many families from their land, and thenation sought an outlet for its surplus population.Despite Spain’s claim to sovereignty, the Englishbegan to colonize North America, starting with the

ENGRAVING, THÉODORE DE BRY AFTER JACQUES LE MOYNE. TITLE PAGE FROM BREVIS NARRATIO EORUM QUAE IN FLORIDA AMERICAE PROVINCIA GALLIS

ACCIDERUNT, SECUNDA ILLAM NAVIGATIONE, DUCE RENATO DE LAUDONIERE CLASSIS PRAEFECTO, 1591 (CHECKLIST 19).

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colony of Roanoke. English seafaring exploits alsostimulated growth of a class of privateers who werethe younger sons of gentry and who, because of En-glish inheritance laws had no hope of a familyfortune. With the ambition and the connections toraise capital to outfit a ship, these daring young menbegan to plunder Spanish treasure ships and tradeillegally with the Spanish colonies.

Until 1558 England and Spain were allies, butwhen Protestant Queen Elizabeth I ascended theEnglish throne, the political climate reversed. Anextreme Protestant faction came to political powerand saw the challenge to Spain as a reforming reli-gious crusade. Elizabeth promoted the voyages ofJohn Hawkins, who sailed to the Canary Islands,purchased a load of slaves, and took them to theIndies. On his fourth voyage Hawkins encounteredMenéndez de Avilés who sank his ships. The mostfamous English privateer, Francis Drake, occupiedNombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama in1572. In 1577 he sailed into the Pacific where heharassed Spain’s Pacific cities before going on to cir-cumnavigate the globe. By 1586 Drake returned tothe Caribbean, plundering Cartagena, SantoDomingo and St. Augustine. His exploits, alongwith the settlement attempt of Walter Raleigh atRoanoke Island, pushed Spain into action. In 1588Spain attempted a full-scale invasion of England.Off the southern English coast, the famous SpanishArmada was destroyed by the British, aided by badweather and the Spaniards’ bad judgment.

In an effort promoted by Pedro Menéndez deAvilés, founder of St. Augustine and governor ofCuba, Spain sought to eliminate foreign threats toits claim of exclusivity in the Americas. Menéndezsuggested implementing naval escorts for transat-lantic fleets and Caribbean-based cruiser squadronsthat would go on seek-and-destroy missions. He alsosuggested building fortifications in Caribbean citiesand manning them with permanent garrisons.Throughout the Caribbean and Florida the manyforts begun in the 1560s remain the hallmark ofcities such as St. Augustine, Havana and San Juan.More restrictive shipping measures included a con-voy system to escort twice-yearly shipping to andfrom Spain. While the plan was a good idea intheory, Spain was unable to support fully the needsof its colonies and their defense. As a result, Span-

ish colonists turned to contraband trade with enemynations, weakening their nation’s hold.

Adding to Spain’s troubles were the Netherlands,which had been a Spanish possession until breakingaway in 1567. A long series of religious wars contrib-uted further to declines in Spanish royal fortunes.Philip II spent untold millions of silver pesos in hisattempt to bring England and the Netherlands backinto the Catholic fold. The Dutch, more interestedin the East Indies than the West, were latecomers tothe Americas and they showed little interest in set-tling the area. However, they did pursue contrabandtrade and transported a variety of New World prod-ucts back to Europe.

Spain tried to crack down on the inhabitants ofHispaniola who had been trading with privateersfrom Tortuga, a nearby island inhabited by men andwomen of mixed nationalities with a common ha-tred of Spain. In 1605 Charles II ordered that thetowns on the north coast of Hispaniola be aban-doned, leading to further Spanish decline in theregion and enabling the privateers to take posses-sion. By 1607 the Spanish Caribbean was at a lowebb, an invitation to foreign powers to begin nip-ping at the heels of the mighty Spanish empire.

The Age of Colonies (1607–1697)

The death of Philip II in 1598 marked the begin-ning of the decline of Spain, overstretched in herworldwide empire and troubled, too, at home. Tak-ing advantage of Spanish weakness, other nationsbegan to establish colonies on the outer Caribbeanislands and fringes of North America. These pro-vided bases for raiding and smuggling to theSpanish colonies, supplying their ships, and export-ing tropical products.

For the French and English the key was the ex-pansion of tobacco cultivation; their first colonieswere established as tobacco-growing centers.Spain’s real trouble came from the Dutch, whoearly on had a different agenda. Initially they wereprimarily interested in salt extraction off the northcoast of Venezuela at Araya, but they, of all the in-terlopers, were most interested in commerce. In theseventeenth century, the Dutch nation becameEurope’s wealthiest, engaging in the transportationand sale of the products of other nations’ colonies.

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“ARX CAROLINA.”ARNOLDUS MONTANUS (1625?–1683). FROM: DIE NIEUWE EN ONBENKENDE WEERLD, OF BESCHRYVING VAN AMERICA EN’T ZUID-LAND.AMSTERDAM, 1671. JAY I. KISLAK FOUNDATION, INC. (CHECKLIST 21).

One of Spain’s biggest problems was the DutchWest India Company, established in 1621. Partcommercial, part military, the company challengedSpain in the West Indies not by colonizing but byprofiting from plunder and commerce. Organizedfleets attacked Spanish shipping everywhere fromAfrica to the West Indies, contributing to Spain’sdownfall by overtaxing her limited resources. TheDutch West India Company’s most spectacular suc-cess was the capture of an entire Spanish convoy offthe coast of Cuba in 1628. Dutch admiral PietHeyn commanded 31 ships that surprised and inter-cepted the entire convoy without firing a shot. Theattack ruined Spanish credit in Europe and para-lyzed its shipping for several years.

As a consequence of Dutch activity, Englandand France were able to occupy other areas. TheSpanish, overtaxed everywhere, could do nothing

about it. The first permanent English settlementwas at Jamestown in North America. In the Carib-bean, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) was founded in1624 and Barbados in 1627, far away from areaspatrolled by the Spanish Armada. In NorthAmerica, the French concentrated on Canada andthe Caribbean islands of Martinique andGuadeloupe.

Later, the English and French followed the suc-cessful Dutch example of the trading company. Butfor a while, other nations’ islands depended onDutch shipping services. Every colony establishedmeant more money for the Dutch. Even Spaincould not resist the Dutch example; by 1648 thetwo nations had signed a peace treaty. Holland gaveup its national policy of raiding Spanish settlementsand ships in return for the privilege of supplying theSpanish colonies with slaves.

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The End of an Era

The goals of European nations changed again bythe mid-seventeenth century. In the early years ofthe century they dedicated their efforts to coloniz-ing areas away from the Spanish Armada. Bymid-century, England and France went on the of-fensive to take some of the territory away fromSpain, exemplified in the English capture of Ja-maica in 1655. From 1642 to 1660, the period ofthe English Civil War, that nation was ruled by aparliamentary government dominated by militantProtestants. Their attacks against Spain were a cru-sade against Catholicism. Spain’s treasure shipswere tempting, but the bottom line was the perma-nent acquisition of territory to establish colonies.

Hostilities between the English and Spanishcontinued through most of the century. Jamaicawas ideally situated to be a base for privateers, andits governor encouraged them. Jamaica’s major cityof Port Royal was located on an excellent naturalharbor. Probably the best-known privateer was SirHenry Morgan, who, operating from a strongholdat Port Royal, led expeditions against Cuba and thesettlements of Porto Bello and Maracaibo in Ven-ezuela. His greatest victory came in Panama, wherea force of nearly 1,500 French and English bucca-neers devastated the isthmus. The sack of Panamarepresented the climax of Morgan’s career, and forhis service to the British crown he was knighted andrewarded with the governorship of Jamaica. Most ofthe cargo stolen from Spanish ships was sold inNorth America, particularly in Rhode Island.Meanwhile in Europe negotiations were under wayto end the hostilities on both sides of the Atlantic.Finally, with the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, both na-tions revoked their letters of marque and, moreimportant, Spain recognized England’s right toexist in the Caribbean.

By 1670, only France remained hostile to theSpanish and the center of privateering shifted fromPort Royal to Tortuga. France under King LouisXIV was the most powerful country in Europe andwanted a presence in the West Indies. OfficialFrench colonization began in 1665 with the ap-pointment of a governor of Tortuga; from that islandFrance began to occupy the western half ofHispaniola, St. Domingue, today known as Haiti.

Two distinct settlements arose: the rough-and-tumble buccaneers in Tortuga and the respectableplanters in St. Domingue. The French royal gover-nors stood between both societies, often walking athin line between respectability and roguishness.Many of Henry Morgan’s old cohorts, now unem-ployed with England’s renunciation of privateering,shifted their allegiance to the French. Raids, as offi-cial government policy, took a terrible toll onSpanish port cities. At the same time in Europe, En-gland and Holland, fearful of France gaining toomuch power, united and aligned against her. Hostil-ity ended in 1697, with the Peace of Ryswick. Spainofficially ceded St. Domingue to France, thus ac-knowledging that nation’s right of New Worldoccupation as well.

The Ryswick treaty formally ended the age of thebuccaneers, yet the legacy of the colonial period inthe Caribbean and Florida lives on. No one can visita Spanish Caribbean city without being impressedby massive sixteenth- and seventeenth-century forti-fications. Throughout the Caribbean, theculture—food, language, music, dress, architecture,among others—is a wonderful mixture of European,Creole and African. Culture varies from island toisland, depending on the pattern of colonial settle-ment and control. Caribbean society is also amixture of African, European, and someAmerindian, although the contemporary claims tobe descendants of the Taíno are disputed. Spain pro-moted Catholicism as an exclusive religion, butonce the monopoly was broken, other religions en-tered the area, including a variety of European andAfrican religions. Spanish is spoken by millions ofpeople in Central and South America and on thelargest islands, but throughout the region French,English, Dutch, Creole and patois are the languagesof the islands’ people.

Sherry Johnson specializes in Latin American history with aconcentration on the colonial Caribbean and Florida. Amember of the history department and the Cuban ResearchInstitute of Florida International University, she has publishedseveral articles and book reviews, and has a book forthcoming,Crafting the Ever-faithful Isle: Military Reform and theTransformation of Cuba, 1753–1808, which in its dissertationform won the 1996 Jay I. Kislak Foundation Award. Otherawards include the Lydia Cabrera Award for Cuban HistoricalStudies; an Andrew P. Mellon Foundation Award; and an A.Curtis Wilgus Award in Caribbean Studies.