Gold, Grief and Rival Crowns: The Price of Conquest
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Question
What is the Columbian Exchange?
Answer
The transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and Europe/Africa following 1492 contact.
Question
Name two major Spanish American silver sites and their discovery dates.
Answer
Potosí (1545, modern Bolivia) and Zacatecas (1546, Mexico).
Question
What was the mita system?
Answer
An Inca-origin labour tax adapted by Spain, forcing indigenous communities to send workers (often to mines like Potosí) under brutal conditions.
Question
What economic activity anchored the English colony of Virginia?
Answer
Tobacco farming and export to Europe.
Question
What did the Laws of Burgos (1512) attempt to do?
Answer
Regulate treatment of indigenous peoples and ban outright cruelty under the encomienda system, though enforcement was weak.
Question
Who was Bartolomé de las Casas and what did he do?
Answer
A former encomendero turned Dominican friar who campaigned against Spanish cruelty to indigenous peoples, notably in 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies' (1552), influencing crown policy.
Question
What were the New Laws of the Indies (1542)?
Answer
Reforms aiming to phase out the encomienda system and stop indigenous labour grants being inherited; strongly resisted by colonists, including a rebellion in Peru.
Question
What is the casta system?
Answer
A colonial social hierarchy ranking people by racial ancestry — peninsulares, then creoles, then mixed-race groups, then indigenous and enslaved African peoples.
Question
What was the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)?
Answer
A papally-brokered agreement drawing a line dividing New World land claims between Spain (west) and Portugal (east).
Question
Why did the Treaty of Tordesillas fail to stop wider European rivalry?
Answer
It only bound Spain and Portugal; France and Britain were not signatories and explored/claimed land without regard to it.
Question
Compare royal policy and colonial practice regarding indigenous treatment.
Answer
The Spanish crown passed reform laws (Burgos 1512, New Laws 1542) from Europe, but colonists on the ground, dependent on forced labour, often resisted or diluted enforcement.
Question
What social outcome resulted from unions between Spanish men and indigenous women?
Answer
A growing mestizo population, which the casta system tried to categorize and rank within colonial society.
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Topic 19.2 hub
European explorations and conquests in the Americas (c1492–c1600)
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