iv CONTENTS
Conquistadors 71 • Lope de Aguirre—An
Underdog of the Conquest 74
4 The Economic Foundations of
Colonial Life 76Tribute and Labor in the Spanish
Colonies 77
The Encomienda and Slavery 77 • The New
Laws of the Indies and the Encomienda 79 •
The Repartimiento, Yanaconaje, and Free
Labor 81 • Black Slavery 82
The Colonial Economy 83
Cortés as a Businessman 85 • The Growth
of the Haciendas 85 • Spanish Agriculture
in the New World 86 • Colonial Mining and
Industry 88
Commerce, Smuggling, and Piracy 91
The Colonial Commercial System 91 •
Sir Francis Drake, Piracy, and Foreign
Plunder 92 • The Framework of the
Colonial Economy 93
5 State, Church, and Society 95
Political Institutions of the Spanish
Empire 95
Formation of Colonial Administration 95 •
The Royal Agents 96 • Provincial
Administration 98 • Ineffectiveness of
Much Spanish Colonial Law 100
The Church in the Indies 100
The Spiritual Conquest of America 101 •
The Moral Decline of the Clergy and the
Missionary Impulse 104 • The Inquisition
in the New World 106 • The Church and
Education 106 • Science, Literature, and
the Arts 108
The Structure of Class and Caste 110
The Ruling Class 110 • The Mestizo: An
Ambiguous Status 111 • Indigenous
Peoples: A Separate Nation 112 • Blacks,
Mulattos, Zambos: The Lowest Class 115 •
Life in the City and on the Hacienda 116 •
Marriage, Sexuality, and the Status of
Women 1186 Colonial Brazil 122
The Beginning of Colonial Brazil 122
The Captaincy System 122 • Portugal’s
Indigenous Policy 124 • The French and
Dutch Challenges 126 • The Mineral Cycle,
the Cattle Industry, and the Commercial
System 126
Government and Church 128
The Administrators and Their
Deficiencies 129 • The Church and the
State 130
Masters and Slaves 131
Color, Class, and Slavery 131 • Large
Estates and Colonial Towns 1337 The Bourbon Reforms and
Spanish America 135
Reform and Recovery 135
The Bourbon Reforms 135 • Revival
of Colonial Commerce and Breakdown
of Trading Monopoly 137 • Increased
Economic Activity 138 • Labor Systems in
the Eighteenth Century 141 • Early Labor
Struggles 142 • Political Reforms 143 •
Strengthening the Defenses 146
Colonial Culture and the Enlightenment 147
Creole Nationalism 148
Colonial Society in Transition, 1750–1810:
An Overview 150
The Revolt of the Masses 152
The Revolt in Peru 153 • The Insurrection
in New Granada (1781) 156