1450+-1525

**South America**


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Economy  ===== Many common people of the Iberian peninsula came to Latin America as conquerors, they sought to recreate themselves as a new nobility class using the indigenous people as serfs. The patriarchal family was quickly adapting to Latin American turf, where they had large estates and had encomiendas, American Indian workers, to cultivate the land. They lived in an agricultural society. Spanish and Portuguese merchants took part in forming traditions that were a part of the American colonies. Portugal had been settling in the African coast since 1415 establishing trading posts rather than actual colonies. In the Atlantic islands, in contrast, there were more outright settlements which lead to a slave trade with Africa and a highly commercialized agricultural system, with sugar as its basis. Brazil used this as its base but expanded upon it, starting out with nothing more as a trade factory, then moved to the Atlantic islands to plantation agriculture. An emerging Atlantic economy was linked to the areas of immigration, commerce, and exploitation of the natives. In the Caribbean, the agricultural Tainos provided enough surplus labor to make their distribution to Spaniards possible. This started what was known as the encomienda, the grant of natives to individual spaniards in a system similar to that of serfdom. The encomendero, the owner of an encomienda, were able to tax or sell their "serfs."

[[image:GC21Q11v2_p340DeLasCasas_large.jpg height="350"]]
The Iberian peninsula held a tradition of holding slaves, and this tradition was expanded and built upon in the Americas. By the 1510s the majority of immigrants was Spanish women. A part of the population was African slaves that were used to work on the plantation. Disease and conquest virtually wiped out the indigenous population of the Caribbean. After seeing the annihilation of these peoples, Bartolome de Las Casas, conquistador turned priest, began the struggle for justice. He felt that though they were slaves they still had souls and should not be treated so poorly. This is the reason why he is seen as a hero to the peole of Latin America to this day.

Politics
The political centralization of both Portugal and Castile depended on a profession bureaucracy, which was generally made up of lawyers and judges. This was a system much like that of China and other great empires. Politics was also made up of religion and the church. Church and state were very closely related from the Muslim re-conquest of the peninsula; some of the links between the two were royal nomination of church officials. Such close linkage was also brought over into the new world. In order to maintain rule, the Spaniards created administrative institutions: governorship, treasury offices, and the royal courtship of appeals, where professional magistrates worked. Spanish legalism was part of the institution transfer. Laws were developed that were based on those of Spain and were supplemented by American experience.