CHAPTER 17
The Diversity of the American Colonial Societies, 1530 – 1770























The Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer of peoples, animals, plants, and
diseases between the New and Old Worlds.
Death rates among Amerindian peoples during the epidemics of the early colonial period
were very high.
Smallpox was the most deadly of the epidemics in the Americas.
Maize, potatoes, and manioc were New World foods that revolutionized Old World
agriculture.
The horse increased military capacity and hunting efficiency.
By the end of the sixteenth century, Portugal occupied most of the Brazilian coast.
In colonial societies, Amerindian religious beliefs survived beneath the surface of
imposed Christianity.
The Council of the Indies was created in Spain in 1524 to put royal power in place over
the population.
The highest-ranking Spanish officials in the colonies enjoyed broad power because
Spain was so far away.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1535 encompassed Mexico, Central American and the
Caribbean Islands.
The most important agent for transmitting European beliefs, language, and culture in
Spanish American and Brazil was the Catholic Church.
The most influential defender of Amerindians in the early colonial period was
Bartolome’ de las Casas.
The Catholic Church became the richest institution of the Spanish colonies.
The economic development of the colonies in Mexico and Peru was dominated by silver
mining and sugar plantations.
An encomienda was a form of forced labor and tribute.
The mit’a was the forced labor system where the male Amerindian population worked six
months of the year in the mines.
Seventeenth-century sugar plantations of Brazil depended on slave labor.
In Brazil, the economic importance of Amerindian slaves was eventually superseded by
African slaves.
The Spanish attempted to protect and control trade to the colonies by using convoy
systems.
Spain’s lesser nobles were called hidalgos.
American-born Spanish whites were called creoles.
Slaves expressed their resistance to the colonial masters in Latin America by
malingering (faking or exaggerating illness), rebellion, running away, and sabotage.
Slaves could be manumitted by purchasing their freedom.



















The castas of Latin America included mixed race peoples such as mestizos and
mulattos.
The English and French American colonies differed from the Spanish and Portuguese
American colonies in that the English/French developed colonies through the efforts of
private colonies.
The early English effort to found a colony in the Americas produced several failures,
such as Roanoke and Newfoundland.
Within fifteen years of its settlement, the colony at Jamestown lost 80 percent of its
population.
The mit’a and encomienda were forms of compulsory labor that was added to the
English colonies.
In Virginia, colonial government consisted of a governor, his council, and representatives
known as the House of Burgesses.
Indigo was a valuable plant used to produce dye.
The largest slave revolt took place in 1739 in South Carolina was the Stono Rebellion.
The two groups of Protestant dissenters that colonized New England were Puritans and
Pilgrims.
The Massachusetts, Chesapeake, and South Carolina colonies had a great division
between the rich and the poor.
The Puritans were one of two groups of Protestant dissenters who colonized New
England.
The Middle Atlantic region was first settled by the Dutch.
The French settlement in the America resembled Spanish and Portuguese colonies in
that they both wanted to extract resources and covert the population to Christianity.
The leaders of the French expansion, the coureurs de bois, were the Frenchmen living
among the natives.
The Amerindian enemies of the French were the Iroquois.
In French Canada, Jesuit efforts to convert the native people to Christianity led to the
founding of schools, hospitals, and churches.
The French and Indian War resulted in the French losing Canada to the English and the
French losing Louisiana to Spain.
Tupac Amaru II was a Peruvian Amerindian leader.
The English Navigation Acts sought to limit colonial trading and production competition.