This was not it.

I finish two major assignments in five days. I’m eager to share what I’ve learned. It will take some time to edit down, but I hope to make it short, sweet and enjoyable to read. I’m also planning a trip to Cologne and maybe Düsseldorf. You guys aren’t reading my blog like you used to. That means I’ve gotten boring. Or neglectful. Things will change. I don’t know when. But they will change.

I’ll need another two years in the village to contain all the things I’ve learned.  How perceptive I’ve become when reading. The blatant misuse of words. The blatant use of words. Obama sang in public. Did you see that? He sang. It sold me.

The dynamics of an open discussion. The cultural misunderstandings. My own insecurity. Her blatant hostility.

The Dutch are not the fastest to get to know. They have a distance about them. But they are kind. Pleasant. There is this straightforwardness that seems insensitive. But really, it’s just honesty. No need to over think the words they’ve spoken. They’ve spoken their thoughts.

My brain only shuts off when consumed in mindless television.

I miss my thoughts of frivolity. Maybe I’m Mrs. Rearden. Lillian.

I just want to chatter like a woman about perfectly unimportant things. 

I hate technical, theoretical writing. Why would I want to say what someone else has already said? Said I who started this blog with a quote.

Academics is difficult. More in self acceptance than in actuality.

I really don’t care about nautical miles, or coastline length. The Chinese were consumed with feeding their people. They were content with living off the wealth they already had. Not in amassing more. Can’t I just leave it at that?

I assure you. The answer for me is not this or that. It’s a messy web of things. Just like my thoughts.

I want to write.

If you work at a steady rate
you may reach the river by nightfall
and if you have the will

a canoe will be waiting 
by the ash factory 
for you to take upstream

to the takoyaki shack
where you can eat delicious food
and drink as much beer as you like

until late into the night.
In other words you have 
your whole life ahead of you

and no one can tell you 
what to do or how to act
or what to say or anything

said the machine in the wall
before dispensing my receipt 
in a tiny wadded ball.

-B. Mirov
Automatic Teller Machine

“The adventurer gives in to tides of chaos, trusts the world to support her – and in doing so turns her back on the fear and obedience she has been taught.  She rejects the indoctrination of impossibility.” 
― Hib & Kika, Off the Map

David S. Landes writes, “One must not think of this as luck,” when describing the Portuguese and their quest for new territory in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. For years the Portuguese studied the ocean currents and the wind patterns of the Atlantic, but just before the coast of South America, the sailors turned east. He then goes on to say, “By comparison, Columbus had a cakewalk…Decades of painful, costly exploration reaching around Africa [Portugal], and here the Spanish found a new world (or maybe Asia) on the first try” (Landes 86 – 88). When speaking of New Guinea in the Guns Germs and Steel film, Jared Diamond, famous for his theory of geographical luck, said, “What’s far more important is the hand that people have been dealt, the raw materials they’ve had at their disposal.” Though Elliot uses no distinct term of “luck” in his explanation of discovery of South America, it is a theme both Landes and Diamond agree exist and an idea Elliot insists we consider.

If the Spanish were lucky, what did their luck bring? What hand had they been dealt? What specifically did this hand bring that it did not bring the British, and would this initial luck prove sustainable?

Hernán Cortéz and Christopher Newport found different indigenous populations upon discovery of the Americas. Cortes found a world of great divide in Montezuma’s Mexica Empire (Elliot 3). However, as there was divide there was also a sophisticated, militaristic structure in the Inca nation that made the transfer of power from the Indian ruler to the King of Spain easy (5). Newport found Powhatan, a leader leading more of a tribe than an empire who “had the cunning and the skills to play a cat-and-mouse game with the Jamestown settlement” (14). Montezuma’s empire saw Cortez and his followers as gods, whereas Powhatan saw the English as weak. Cortez discovered a hierarchical order within the Inca culture, something the Spanish knew well. In efforts to assume control, the British were not so fortunate which later led to the ‘Great Massacre’ (16). This is the first indication of Spain’s luck, versus English misfortune. The influence of local populations carried on.

“The differences in size and density of the indigenous population would profoundly affect the subsequent character of the two colonial worlds.” Cortez had millions of Indians he could manipulate; the British had thousands (13). However within this manipulation, the Spanish saw a sort of cohabitation it did not intend to create. The Spaniards lacked women, but held on to their appetite for sex and labor services.  This created a mestizo population that would in time complicate the distinct levels of society the Spanish initially wanted, – ‘a republic of Spaniards’ and a ‘republic of Indians’ (83).

While the Spanish saw opportunity and little choice but to live alongside the Indians, the British in Virginia and New England created a society of expulsion brought on by fear. It was a world of separation accepted by Indians who seemed “resistant to assimilation.” Though the British were religious to some extent, they turned to exclusion, accepting that they could not convert the “savages” but could transform the land instead (85 – 87).

We begin to see early on the changes being made to the Spanish crown’s initial plan for South America. As these plans evolved, so too, does the character of the monarchy’s involvement. The conquistadors of the early sixteenth century held great standing with the Crown of Castile. However the creoles of the later 1500s, (many of who claimed direct family lineage from these respected conquerors, but had intermarried with non-Spaniards) grew offensive as Spain began to imply their inferiority to peninsulares (238). Therefore, in efforts to create order, Spain adopted a bureaucratic, internal government within South America defined by fiscal and administrative reforms. This government response, such as the Quito reforms, would only add fuel to the fire for anti-Spanish sentiments and a lack of unity felt by those living in Spanish America (311).

So, while Spanish American castes were feeling disconnected due in part to its intermarriage between races, a phenomenon initially sparked by its need for sex, labor, and competition of indigenous population size, British American colonies, such as Virginia, were growing united by their definitive roles in ethnicity (168). The need for order and uniformity in South America furthered Spain’s militaristic way of control with a top-down approach while British America was free to sustain a bottom-up method to the ordering of the people.

Just as Spain had appeared lucky in the beginning with its discovery of a controllable people, they found a natural resource of incomparable proportions. “The absence of silver mines in the areas of English settlement left the British colonies at an obvious disadvantage” (94). But was this discovery to be viewed as luck once its damage had been done? Did the British succeed in part because of their perceived lack of geographical fortune? Elliot seems to think so.

The Spanish found silver. A quick, extractable, dependable resource it could exploit and trade. The British found a land rich in potential. This “potential” found in Virginia and New England created an immigration of families, a privilege caused by an initially perceived inconvenience that the northern settlers would have to work the land instead of extracting from it. The availability of a homogenous society in British America would add to their later success, a direct contrast to the heterogeneity and confusion among social classes in the south (44).

“With much less immediate profit to be expected from overseas colonization, the British crown maintained a relatively low profile in the crucial opening stages of colonial development” (27). It can be assumed that the monarchy of England was disappointed with what it found, or in fact, did not find, upon discovery of the new world. It can also be assumed that this lack of monetary return widened the gap of divergence between the British and Spanish.

A major diverging factor in the roles of the British and Spanish crown can be seen through religion. While religion in these two, new worlds would start to look different over time, it began as one in the same. Religion became a catalyst for change brought with questionable ethics and morality. The Massachusetts Bay Company carried a seal with the image of an Indian paired with the words ‘Come over and help us’ in 1629. In 1649 the Society for Propagation of the Gospel of New England was formed to promote the conversion of Indians (73). In Spain the Bishop of Chiapas said, “But their base and imperfect character requires that they should be ruled, governed and guided to their appointed end by fear more than by love” (72). The list of these examples is numbered long. The results are tragic and the burning question remains, did the Europeans truly believe their rhetoric? Were their hearts in the right place? Though we can never be certain, it is fair to believe many had good intentions, but those intentions would change as greed and selfishness took precedent.

Both old worlds came in the name of religion, but those religions would differ.

The Catholicism mandated by Spain versus the Protestantism of England, alongside preexisting conditions, would further the divergence of top-down and bottom-up approaches to ordering society.  “With fewer Indians to be exploited and converted, the British crown and the Anglican church had much less reason than their Spanish counterparts to display a close interest in the well-being of the indigenous population in the newly settled lands (27).” The Crown of Castile involvement tried to keep the enslavement of Indians at bay due to their high profile and Catholic guilt, but the task and temptation was too great. British America was not only less watched due to their lack of instant monetary gain, but they did not have the great dilemma of organizing millions of Indians within the domination of one, controlling religion.

The Spanish interventionist behavior, with its overuse and perversion of the Catholic faith, is mapped out clearly. The conquistadors, sponsored by the crown, discovered a land rich in peoples and natural resources. These findings did not go silent among the international world or religious Spain. It was then through creed that Spain attempted to justify its behavior. This justification led to an America of over control, hypocrisy and a lack of independent thinking.

“If there are no mines, there is no Peru” (98). The silver mines of Peru are a prime example of Spanish crown involvement and its insincerity. The mines began with forced labor, but the crown stepped in and required changes to be made. During the sixteenth century voluntary, Indian workers came with the enticement of paid wages. Over time the indigenous populations of America were working in a sort of “European-style wage economy.” However, due to forces such as disease, the Indian population started to dwindle and the European immigrants needed a new labor supply. Between the dates of 1595 and 1640, the Portuguese shipped roughly 275,000 Africans into Spanish America (99-100). The wealth of and greed for silver would surpass any moral thinking.

While the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to atrocities of human life, it continued to indoctrinate its people with “symbolic occupation” (29). With the encomienda system, the conquistadors had been granted legitimacy from the crown and therefore, the church. The Conquerors and their descendents had lived a life of authority and elevated social status while Spain gained wealth and worldly prestige (39). This bond had created a feudal society with an important admiration, trust, and reliance. But this system would later be broken.

As racial, Indian theories grew, creoles attempted to widen the gap between themselves and the indigenous population—a world it previously had cohabitated with blessings and encouragement from the monarchy. Creoles argued it was the ‘nature,’ not the environment that made the Indians who they were (236). The conquistador descendants begin a campaign to prove their “purity of blood” in efforts to protect their rights and status amongst peninsulares (323). This divide proved complicated and detrimental to the Spanish crown. Because Spain grew distrustful of the very persons it once relied upon, and due to the design and orchestration of a feudal society established by old world notions and new world necessity, the southern world west of the Atlantic now had far too many loyal subjects to please and organize.

The colonies of the north had a very different turn out. “If large quantities of silver had indeed been found in Virginia, there is little reason to doubt that the development of an extractive economy would have created a high-spending elite which would have more than lived up to the dreams of the gentlemen of Jamestown” (27). How would these possible dreams of the Jamestown gentlemen have affected the new world and would the dreams of the settlers have been determined or defined by the dreams of the crown? These are questions we cannot answer definitively. However, we can examine the events that did take place incorporating old world ideas.

In 1625, Charles I issued a proclamation using the term ‘”Our Royall Empire” in regards to Virginia, the Somers Islands, and New England (117). He was making a claim that these conquered lands belonged to the crown, but his weak declaration was a use of rhetoric rather than an act of force. The colonization of North America was characterized by proprietary colonies; a use of independent, private money as opposed to direct involvement from the crown.  This is in direct contrast to the “interventionist behavior of the Spanish crown, which had an obvious and continuing interest in securing for itself a regular share of the mineral wealth that was being extracted in the Indies” (27). It may be safe to say Charles I was not paying attention. It was a decision he may have made differently had there been a more immediate return on the investment of conquest.

We can justifiably question whether religion could have been used to further the ambition of the British crown had Charles I and his successors held a more lucrative possibility in America. However, it is in part because the English allowed freedom of religion that led colonies to coexist with differing views. It is these differing beliefs mixed with old world ideas of British liberties that created cohesion among the northern colonies and the bottom-up hierarchy of society. The British had a freedom of the press to spread and to encourage knowledge; the Spanish Americans had nothing on a comparative scale (330). As the European phenomenon of the Enlightenment arose, the British adopted its principles with welcoming arms and admiration. It reinforced their views on political liberty, a sentiment that was lagging in the Spanish American world of royal officials vying for control (332 – 333). Spanish American elites defined themselves by royal decree of the crown; British American elites could define themselves by not only wealth but also intelligence (341).

To be sure, the Toleration Act of 1689, though it excluded some, proved that religious belief and practice were no longer requirements for the cohesion and therefore, survival of the political world (213). As views on freedom arose in the British colonies, immigrants learned how to assimilate and take action for the common good, looking for leadership amongst intellects. While Jesuits and friars, and the creoles and peninsulares were fighting, the Englishmen were creating bonds.

When the empires of Spain and England both faced periods of downfall in the Seven Years War, Napoleonic dominion and conflict with one other, both monarchies struggled with differing levels in the lack of political, religious, and monetary control of the Americas. With this lack of control came a confusion of flexibility for South America and an opportunity to act in the north. The difference that mattered was that the British knew how to survive independently while the Spanish did not. “It was precisely because they saw themselves as British that the Americans would stand up for their rights” (319). It was this independent know-how, carried from the old world, sustained through years of political and religious freedom granted by the crown, that put the British ahead of the Spaniards when it came time to break free.  The Spanish in America had always seen their monarch as their leader who took power from God. However, what were the Spanish to make when that weakness was exposed and unknown Spanish reformers came in to dictate?

Hernán Cortéz got lucky. He found a natural resource and population vulnerable to exploitation and greed, something his crown failed to take with caution and pace. The economic gain Spain found directly affected its social and political involvement with the new world. Their use of religion and social structures adopted from influences in the old world kept leaders who were misguided and unqualified in tact. It kept their followers from breaking free, thinking for themselves, and finding common ground. As the Spanish crown fell apart, so too, did the social structures that were directly related to the economic systems of Spanish America. Its maker, the Spanish crown and church, had so strongly held the new world that it could not sustain itself as that maker fell into decline.

Charles Newport found a world of a potential, something his monarchy overlooked. The British were disappointed in what they found; which they presumed was bad luck. This ignored potential for success allowed free thinkers motivated by promise, instead of instant gratification, to work together, separate from their motherland, to create a social, political and therefore economically sustainable society. Had the roles of luck been reversed, it is likely that the crowns of England and Spain would have played their cards differently. British liberties may not have been allowed, Catholicism may not have spread as it had, and quite possibly, Spanish America could have become the new leader of the free world.

Bibliography

Elliot, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006

Guns Germs and Steel. Dir. Tim Lambert, Cassian Harrison. Host. Jared Diamond. Lion Television, 2005

Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999

I also think I look for any excuse to blog.