Modern Latin America Flashcards
Mayans occupied…
Yucatan peninsula
southern Mexico and most of modern day Guatemala
Mayans began to build their civilization…
around 500 B.C.
Mayan most famous achievements…
architecture, sculpture, painting, hieroglyphic writing, math, astronomy, the invention of calendars, and a complex social order of over 200,000.
Why did the Mayan society collapse?
Most reasons unknown.
Fell victim to domination (972-1200) and then absorption (1200-1540) by Toltec invaders.
Where did the Toltec invade from?
Central Mexican highlands
Where was the Aztec empire located?
Mexico’s spacious central valley
One of the Chichimec tribes came from the north to subdue…
the Toltecs.
The Chichimec tribes eventually became the…
Aztecs.
When did the Aztecs construct the city of Tenochtitlan?
1325
Where is Tenochtitlan?
Contemporary Mexico City
What were the Aztecs noted for?
Their military organization and prowess are ceremonial city-building.
Describe the art of the Aztecs
Inferior in subtlety and craftmanship compared to other Mexican civilizations (except for their poetry).
Describe the Aztec’s economy
Rigidly stratified. Slaves at the bottom. Hereditary nobility at the top.
Education, marriage and labor were programmed into society.
Economy owned communally.
Hereditary rulers exercised immense political power.
Who was Montezuma II?
A hereditary Aztec ruler
What happened to Aztec-conquered states?
They were not incorporated into the empire.
They were tribute paying vassals with some in a perpetual state of war with Tenochtitlan.
What was one reason for this warfare with the Aztecs?
The Aztec religion required human sacrifice, and prisoners of ware could be used for these bloody rituals.
Where were the Incas located?
3000 miles from northern Ecuador through Peru to southern Chile and into the interior as well.
Describe the Incas expanding their empire.
After consolidating their hold in the Cuzco Valley in Peru, the Incas began expanding their empire in the early 1400s until the Spanish Conquest in 1532.
What happened to groups who lost to the Incas?
Groups became integral parts of the empire.
Local nobles from conquered areas were brought to Cuzco and treated as royal guests, to strengthen support for the emperor, or Inca.
Resistant elements in conquered zones were transferred to areas controlled by loyal followers.
Describe political power within the Incas
Political power belonged to a organized, highly disciplined bureaucracy, with local officials at the bottom and a single supreme ruler at the top.
Incas were in command of most of the…
Andes
What skills are Incas noted for?
Masterful engineers.
Built a vast road system (for human and animal transit since they did not use the wheel).
Built an intricate irrigation system.
Terraced agriculture on mountain sides.
Excelled in textile design.
Excelled in treating head injuries, made possible by trepanning the human skull.
How many different linguistic groups were in modern-day Mexico?
Over 200
About 1/3 of conquerors of Peru came from…
lesser or “common nobility.”
How long did it take for Cortes to dismantle the Aztecs?
2.5 years (plus several hundred reinforcements)
About 2/3 of conquerors of Peru were of…
Plebian origin (working class)
When Hernan Cortes set out to Cuba in 1519, he only had…
550 men and 16 horses.
What factors helped Cortes overthrow the Aztecs?
Spanish equipment consisted of gunpowder (for muskets and cannons)
horses
organization
the confidence to stay constantly on the attack.
Aztecs had the tendency to identify Cortes and his followers with the god Quetzalcoatl, whose return to the valley was predicted by myth.
Non-Aztec peoples who resisted and resented Aztec domination and supplied the Spaniards with troops and advice.
Outbreak of smallpox
What helped Francisco Pizzaro conquer the Incas?
Many of the same that helped Cortes plus a civil war within the Incas.
When did Pizzaro accomplish the takeover?
1533
Men: Women in Peru
7 white men to 1 white woman
What happened when Spanish men outnumbered the Spanish women?
Spanish men took native women as their consorts and had children, often illegitimate.
Name of the children born from Spaniards and natives?
mestizo
Which race would become the most dominant race across Spanish America?
The mestizos
How did Spain try to keep control in Spanish America?
Appointing “vice-royalty” in Mexico (“New Spain”) and Peru.
What was the Span key institution for New World Affairs
Council of the Indies
“obedezco pero no cumplo”
The crown had ultimate authority, but local officials had considerable autonomy
Central foundation for Spanish America’s economy?
Oppressing natives for cheap labor
What happened when the crown legally protected natives?
Virtually nothing
Describe the multiracial social relationships of Spanish America
Rivalry between whites born in Spain (peninsulares) and whites born in the New World (criollas/creoles)
Complex stratification system of overlapping social categories due to occupations
Tenuous interaction between racial groupings
Legalization of interracial marriages blurred social boundaries and legitimized mobility
Result of the War of Spanish Succession (1700-1713)
Granted the British the contract (asiento) for the slave trade to the Spanish colonies.
Describe the conquering of Brazil
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal granted Portugal Brazil, which they named after the brazilwood export.
There was no civilization comparable to the Aztecs or Incas. Brazil has to be settled gradually.
Brazil’s biggest export became…
Sugar, sourced by natives, and eventually slaves from Africa when natives died from European diseases.
Bandeirantes
Bandeirantes were settlers in Portuguese Brazil who participated in exploratory voyages during the early modern period to expand the colony’s borders and subjugate indigenous Brazilians.
Corregidores
A corregidor was a local administrative and judicial official in Spanish Empire. They were the representatives of the royal jurisdiction over a town and its district. The name comes from the word corregir, meaning “to correct”. He was the highest authority of a corregimiento.
Corregidores were hated and replaced by…
“intendants” which were local governors directly responsible to the crown, not the viceroy.
Almost all of the intendants were…
peninsulares.
Foundation of the army that would fight for independence in Spanish America
When the king of Spin ordered the formation of colonial militias. Creoles who desired power took over the militias–membership of 23,000 compared to 6000 members of regular Spanish army in the viceroyalty.
What was a major factor in Spanish Independence?
The challenge to the creole status as the crown reduced their status and influence.
What act prompted the colonies to revolt?
When Napoleon occupied Madrid in 1909 and planted his brother Joseph on the throne.
What did the colonists argue after Joseph took throne?
Since Spain no longer had a government, sovereignty reverted to the people.
Cabildo
The Cabildo of Buenos Aires is the public building in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was used as a seat of the town council during the colonial era and the government house of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco was a Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire.
What happened when Ferdinand VII took back the throne in 1814 and restored the absolute monarchy?
Many creoles concluded that since the king was back, there was no reason to continue their mobilization.
Bolívar saw his men and munitions dwindle.
José María Morelos
José María Morelos (born September 30, 1765, Valladolid, Mexico—died December 22, 1815, San Cristóbal) was a revolutionary priest who assumed leadership of the Mexican independence movement after Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 rebellion and subsequent execution.
Morelos felt a true connection to his people, and they loved him for it. He fought to remove all class and race distinctions. He was one of the first true Mexican nationalists and he had a vision of a unified, free Mexico, whereas many of his contemporaries had closer allegiances to cities or regions. He differed from Hidalgo in many key ways: he did not allow churches or the homes of allies to be looted and actively sought support among Mexico’s wealthy Creole upper class. Ever the priest, he believed it was God’s will that Mexico should be a free, sovereign nation: the revolution became almost a holy war for him.
When did Mexico declare independence?
In 1813, the Congress of Chilpancingo declared Mexico’s independence from Spain.
When is Mexico’s Independence Day and why?
September 16, the anniversary of Hidalgo’s speech.
What turned “independence from Spain into a conservative goal to uphold traditional values?
When Ferdinand VII succumbed to political pressure and suddenly endorsed the liberal constitution of 1812.
How was Peru able to declare independence?
After it gained mass support following Ferdinand VII’s acceptance of the liberal constitution of 1812.
Aztecs: no British noblesse oblige:
no obligation
—no obligation to help citizens
Incas farmed communal lands and had own
small family plots
Why was Catholicism used to justify taking down the Aztec
—morale booster + money
—specie — gold and silver
Spain worried about local elites will be corrupted and
lose the territories
Mercantilism
money is given back to the crown
—crown wants the money for relative gains
—trying to preserve balance of power in their own region, preserve security (mercenaries +weapons)
Mercantilism zero-sum-gain
—building weaponry to be more secure will lead to other countries building their weaponries in a sort of arms race—a never-ending cycle
Mother country acting as a monopoly
(while being price setters) as the colonies are only allowed to trade with mother county and other main-related colonies, but not within latin America.
Low prices to mother country, high prices to other countries.
Moors
in Granada from North Africa. Muslim empire.
—Spain captures Granada
