Expansion and Consequences: Crash Course European History #5

Summary

В этом выпуске Crash Course European History John Green рассматривает расширение Европы и его влияние на мир. Рассматриваются катастрофические последствия для коренных народов, введение христианства и его изменения в Америках, а также начало глобализации с обменом культур, растениями и животными. Также обсуждается рабство, экспансия европейских держав и их влияние на формирование современного мира.

Takeaways

• 🌍 Европейское расширение XVI века привело к коллизии двух миров, вызвав гибель и возможности на поразительном масштабе.
• 🗡️ Испанское вмешательство в Америки привело к уничтожению и распространению болезней, что привело к сокращению населения коренных американцев на 90%.
• 🛣️ Испанцы использовали существующие политические структуры и инфраструктуру, такие как дороги и коммуникации, для поддержания своего доминирования в Америка.
• 💰 Большие объемы серебра и золота, извлекаемые из шахт, сделали Испанию очень богатой державой.
• 🤔 Испанская экспансия показала, что поддержание империи требует практических взаимодействий и сотрудничества с покоренными народами.
• 🙏 Кто-то из европейцев, таких как Bartolomé de Las Casas, выступал против жестокости и защищал права коренных народов.
• 🌿 Пришествие Европеян в Америку привело к распространению христианства, которое, в свою очередь, изменило и самих американцев.
• 👼 Икона Надцатайской Девы Марии, появившаяся в Мексике, стала символом синтеза местных и католических верований.
• 🏴‍☠️ Англичане и другие европейские державы начали конкурировать с Испанией, осуществляя пиратские набеги и завоевывая свои колонии.
• 📈 Формирование корпораций, таких как Английская и Голландская Восточная Индия Компании, способствовало глобальному расширению и экспансии.
• 🌱 Колумбовский обмен (Columbian Exchange) ознаменовался обменом растениями, животными и культурами между Африкой, Европой и Америками, что радикально изменило мир.

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Европейское расширение и его последствия

В этом параграфе рассматривается влияние европейского расширения на мировую популяцию. Автор подчеркивает, что открытие новых земель и столкновение двух миров привели к огромным изменениям и катастрофам. Рассматриваются методы, которыми испанцы использовали существующие политические структуры, чтобы поддерживать порядок и собирать налоги, а также их незнание эффективного управления колониями. Также обсуждается экономический успех Испании благодаря захвату драгоценных металлов и их обработке с помощью местных технологий. В заключении параграфа упоминается критика системы энкомиенде и борьба Бартоломе де Лас Касас за права местных народов.

05:02

📜 Христианизация и культурные изменения в Америке

Второй параграф фокусируется на том, как христианизация и колонизация повлияли на культуру и религию местных народов. Рассказывается о появлении новой формы Марии, известной как Наuestra Señora de Guadalupe, которая объединяла элементы католичизма и местных верований. Также упоминается, как другие европейские державы, такие как Англия и Голландия, начали конкурировать с Испанией за добычу богатств и как это вело к расширению атлантского рабства и торговли людьми.

10:02

🌱 Колумбовский обмен и его влияние на еду и экологию

Третий параграф рассматривает Колумбовский обмен, который охватывал не только перемещение людей и товаров, но и распространение растений и животных между континентами. Обсуждается, как новые виды еды, такие как картофель, майс и помидоры, повлияли на еду и популяции Европы, а также как новые животные, включая лошадей и свиней, повредили экологии Нового Света. Также упоминается влияние обмена на продовольствие, сохранение еды и изменения в жизни людей в Европе.

15:06

🌐 Глобализация и неравенство в колониальном периоде

В заключительном параграфе подводятся итоги колониальных времен и их влияние на глобализации и социальное неравенство. Автор отмечает, что хотя сегодняшний мир стал более обеспеченный и здоровым, он также стал свидетельством глобального неравенства и несправедливости. История колониальных времен продолжает оказывать влияние на современное общество, и мы, как продукты этой истории, продолжаем ее создавать.

Keywords

💡Колониальное расширение

Колониальное расширение - это процесс, когда страны расширяют свои территории, завоевывая или основанные на торговле новые земли. В контексте видео это означает, как европейские державы расширялись за пределы Европы, завоевав и основав колонии в Америках и других частях мира. Это было ключевым элементом истоков глобализации и привело к множеству последствий для обитателей этих новых территорий.

💡Военные экспедиции

Военные экспедиции - это действия военных сил для завоеваний новых территорий. В видео упоминается, как Кортес и другие испанские конкистадоры использовали военные экспедиции для завоевания Инкского империи и других мест.

💡Чума и measles

Чума и measles - это инфекционные болезни, которые принесли европейцы в Америку и привели к гибели множества коренных жителей из-за отсутствия иммунитета. В видео подчеркивается, что болезни, такие как эти, были одной из главных причин катастрофического сокращения населения коренных американцев.

💡Энкомиенда

Энкомиенда - это система, когда испанская корона давала солдатам и приключенцам право наблюдать за трудом местного населения на определенной территории. Это был способ контроля и эксплуатации, который использовался в Испанской колониальной империи в Америке.

💡Бартоломе де лас Касас

Бартоломе де лас Касас - это испанский миссионер, который начал борьбу за права коренных американцев после своего обращения. В видео упоминается его критика системы энкомиенды и его усилия в защиту коренных народов от насилия и эксплуатации.

💡Крестовые походы

Крестовые походы - это серия военных кампаний, направленных на завоевание и защиту святых мест христианства. В контексте видео, они связаны с распространением христианства среди коренных народов Америки и их принудительным принятием в качестве условие для колонизации.

💡Колумбийский обмен

Колумбийский обмен - это术语, описывающий обмен растениями, животными и культурными практическими навыками между Африкой, Европой, Азией и Америками после открытия Новых Земель. В видео рассматривается, как этот обмен повлиял на глобальное развитие, внеся новые виды пищевых культур и изменив экосистемы.

💡Трансатлантический рабство

Трансатлантический рабство - это торговля рабами из Африки в Америки, что стало одним из основных аспектов колониальной экономики. В видео говорится о том, как испанцы и англичане использовали африканских рабов для работы на плантациях и в других экономических предприятиях.

💡Компании Восточной Индии

Компании Восточной Индии - это торговые корпорации, основанные европейскими державами для организации торговли и колониальных экспедиций. В видео упоминается Английская и Голландская компании Восточной Индии как примеры таких организаций, которые сыграли важную роль в расширении и эксплуатации колоний.

💡Глобализация

Глобализация - это процесс интеграции экономик и культур мира, что ведет к глобальному сообществу. В видео говорится о том, как колониальное расширение и торговые связи, сформированные в результате, стали основой современной глобализации с ее преимуществами и проблемами.

Highlights

European expansion led to the discovery of unknown lands and peoples, causing massive shifts in global understanding.

The collision between European and native worlds resulted in both devastation and opportunity on an unprecedented scale.

Iberian expansion in the 16th century caused massive destruction, with diseases like smallpox and measles decimating native populations.

Native American populations fell by as much as 90% due to European diseases and conquests.

Spanish colonizers used pre-existing Incan political structures to maintain control and extract wealth.

Silver and gold from the Americas flowed into Spain, transforming it from a poor kingdom into a wealthy one.

The use of liquid mercury by pre-Columbian peoples to process silver and gold influenced European mining practices.

Critics like Bartolomé Las Casas emerged, advocating for human rights and condemning the brutal treatment of native populations.

Las Casas' advocacy is considered by some historians to be an early push for what we recognize today as human rights.

The introduction of Christianity to the Americas led to a blending of indigenous beliefs with Catholic traditions, as seen in the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Pirates like Francis Drake attacked Spanish ships, capturing large amounts of wealth, which significantly boosted England's economy.

The English and Dutch established trading companies, following the example of the Portuguese and Spanish, which led to global exploration and colonization.

The Columbian Exchange resulted in the widespread movement of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds, transforming diets and economies.

New World crops like potatoes, maize, and tomatoes became staples in European diets, while European livestock caused environmental damage in the Americas.

The wealth extracted from colonies by European powers marked the beginning of globalization, with lasting implications of inequality and exploitation.

Transcripts

Hi I’m John Green and this is Crash Course European History.

So today we’re going to continue looking at European expansion and its impact on the

world’s humans.

Like, imagine learning that there are people in places you did not know existed, that they

eat foods you’ve never seen, that their world contains plant and animal species entirely

different from your world.

What people thought was one world turned out to be two, and the collision of those worlds

wrought devastation and opportunity on a truly mind-boggling scale.

And today, we’re going to ask you to look at the consequences of European expansion,

and consider how those consequences change depending on where you find yourself.

INTRO Destruction from Iberian expansion was truly

extraordinary across the sixteenth century.

As Hernan Cortes commented: “We could not walk without treading on the bodies and heads

of dead Indians.”[i] Besides the slaughter of empire-building directly

inflicted by the invaders and their local allies, the ongoing progress of smallpox,

and measles, and other diseases that Europeans brought to the Americas completely overwhelmed

the healthcare systems of native Americans.

Many millions died.

Within a century, the population of native Americans had fallen perhaps by as much as

90%.

Throughout the Spanish Empire in the Americas the colonizers made use of existing political

structures that were already in place for collecting taxes and otherwise maintaining

order.

Even as the Spanish king appointed elite men from Spain as viceroys enforcing civil and

military rule over what had been the Incan Empire for instance, the Incan systems of

roads and communication networks facilitated Spanish domination.

It’s also important to remember that because the Spanish had never before experienced almost

three- thousand-mile-long imperial operation, like the one the Incans had, the Spanish had

very little understanding of how to maintain its functions or to provide for its upkeep.

Much as the Spanish empire initially depended on brute force, sustaining it required practical

interactions with conquered people and in many cases their cooperation.

The rewards of empire for the Spanish were truly astonishing.

Thanks to the seizure of art and religious objects made with precious metals, the discovery

of mines, and the know-how of native Americans and others in running those mines, by the

mid-sixteenth century silver and gold were pouring into Spain.

And what had been a very poor kingdom became a very very rich one.

Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

It’s now believed that pre-Columbian peoples knew how to use liquid mercury to process

silver and gold--a method that’s still used today.

It was also used by the Spanish and by the end of the century the Portuguese

had discovered precious metals in Brazil, too.

The Portuguese cut down trees in Brazillian forests to trade in Brazilwood.

And sugar production flourished across the Caribbean beginning in Jamaica in 1515 and

eventually spreading across tropical and forested regions of the New World where the vast tracts

of trees could be felled to feed the fires needed for sugar refining.To launch and sustain

all these enterprises—mining, metallurgy, sugar refining, lumbering—Iberians initially

used the forced labor and know-how of local peoples, as I mentioned earlier.

The Spanish government awarded its soldiers and adventurers encomienda, that is the labor

of local people on a large plot of land.

But there were critics of this system among Europeans, perhaps most notably Bartolomé

Las Casas, a Catholic missionary who had helped in the savage conquest of Cuba and who had

received an encomienda for his participation.

But then the preaching of a Dominican friar made him see conquest in a different light

and he began a campaign on behalf of local people.

Las Casas, while underscoring the benefits of conversion to Christianity, lambasted his

fellow conquerors for their murder, brutality, and pillage.

He wrote of native Americans, “To subject them first by warlike means is a form and

procedure contrary to the law … and gentleness of Jesus Christ.”

Las Casas wrote much more and lobbied the Spanish court (some would say he harassed

it), beginning in some historians’ minds the drive for what are considered today human

rights.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

Las Casas’ story is a reminder that the cause of human rights always needs people

who have them in order to press it forward.

But ultimately the people who are responsible for expansions in human rights are the people

who are denied them and insist upon their humanity anyway.

So to shift perspectives for a moment, some Europeans were advocating for human rights

but many many people without those rights were advocating for them.

And as for indigenous people in the New World, to present one story of their response to

colonization would be inaccurate--at times, communities and individuals resisted; at times,

some cooperated.

But it’s hard to overstate how destabilizing it was to these communities to lose in many

cases 90% of their population.

One of the huge changes though was the arrival of Christianity and the demand that the colonized

become Christians.

Christianity changed the Americas, but the Americas also changed Christianity.

In the face of the demand of the Church that conquered people become Catholic, they might

for instance blend their own beliefs with Catholic ones.

In 1531, the Aztec Cuauhtlatoatzin, whose baptismal name was Juan Diego, had five visions

of the Virgin Mary on a sacred Aztec spot of the corn goddess, near Mexico City.

Mary’s miracles left an imprint of her form on Juan Diego’s cape.

And on the cape, Mary appeared to be an Aztec woman wearing a robe with Aztec designs and

symbols.

This version of Mary, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, was brown-skinned and was often

called, “the dark virgin.”

Many shrines to Our Lady of Guadalupe were built, and her story was written down both

in Spanish and in the Aztec language, Nahuatl.

Our Lady of Guadalupe replaced some of the local goddesses that were suppressed by the

Christians.

Women in particular took up devotion to her as a symbol of motherhood.

And today, Our Lady of Guadalupe’s basilica in Mexico City is said to be the most visited

shrine in the world.

It wasn’t too long before other European powers, eyeing these profits, sought to literally

capture Spanish wealth.

Like English privateer Francis Drake began his career of attacking Spanish shipping in

the 1560s and often seized huge fortunes for the queen and investors in his voyages.

While circumnavigating the globe, he captured stores of Spanish gold and silver from ships

along the west coast of South America.

In some cases, a single seizure might yield the equivalent of an entire year’s income

for the royal treasury.

You heard that right--taking down one Spanish ship could equal all the tax collection in

England for a year--which gives you a sense of just how much wealth was being extracted

from colonies.

No wonder Elizabeth knighted Drake in 1581 after he returned from his historic circumnavigation—which

was only the second circumnavigation of the globe in European history at the time.

And Drake made it home Magellan.

Stan am I allowed to make a joke about Magellan dying.

Has enough time passed?

Stan says “yes”.

Right.

So the French, Dutch, and other treasure-hungry people joined the English in Atlantic piracy,

which increased the wealth of many European kingdoms and individuals of course.

But those same European states also began imitating the Portuguese and Spanish in global

exploration, trade, and eventually settlement.

In 1497, Italian sailor John Cabot, which was not his Italian name by the way.

I’ve always found it very funny that the two most famous Italian sailors in history

are named John Cabot and Christopher Columbus.

At any rate John Cabot commissioned by Henry VII of England and landed somewhere north

of Maine, probably on the Canadian coast.

And then returned to London to great acclaim.

The English established the East India Company in 1600 to focus on their exploration efforts

and the Dutch founded a similar United East India Company in 1602, which brought together

several trading companies from various Dutch states.

And other governments chartered similar corporations.

These companies performed a variety of functions from gathering investors, and building ships,

to raising armies and taking over new territory and enslaving people to work conquered land.

Lest you think that like corporations are newly evil.

Which brings us to the slave trade.

Initially, Portuguese sailors sought to catch Africans they happened to spot along the coast,

and then sell them as slaves in Europe.

But by the end of the sixteenth century, the capture of Africans for sale to Europeans

became routine and then eventually a massive business for both African slade traders and

Europeans after 1650.

And this was also partly due to disease and the devastation of colonization.

The Spanish had trouble with sugar production in the Caribbean after the native Taino people

had been wiped out by disease; the British then took over and began importing African

slaves to work in sugar plantations.

By the eighteenth century British slavers had taken the lead in the Atlantic trade.

Partly due to petitions like those from Las Casas, Spanish rulings that Native Americans

could not be enslaved led the Spanish landowners and mine operators to import Africans and

Asians to stay within the law, which did not yet say that you know people could not be

enslaved.

Some Asian slaves, once brought to the Spanish Empire, were able to pass as local people,

and claim their freedom on that basis.

But almost everyone who was enslaved died in slavery.

Life expectancy was very low; all manner of mistreatment was common; and legal protections

were almost nonexistent.

It’s very important to consider those perspectives too.

And also to consider why traditionally those perspectives have been ignored.

We’ve talked about how the establishment of transoceanic travel meant that diseases,

and people, and finished goods were traveling across oceans but so were plants and animal

species.

This whole process is sometimes known as the Columbian exchange.

This movement of goods and people and species across the Atlantic was tremendously important

to history--before it, new world foods like pumpkins and tomatoes, maize, potatoes did

not even exist in Afroeurasia.

Did the globe open up?

What’s in the center of the world?

It’s a pumpkin.

You want to know why there were no jack-o-lanterns in 13th century Europe?

There were no pumpkins.

There was no popcorn because there was no corn.

#sponsored.

I wish.

I love this stuff.

You know the famous bananas of South America?

No, you don’t.

Bananas are from Africa.

They didn’t exist in the Americas until the Columbian exchange.

So much of what feels natural and even defining about our cultures and histories is in fact

really really new.

Nigerian cassava.

Irish potatoes.

Vanilla Ice Cream in Europe.

Tomatoes in Italy.

None of this was conceivable before the Columbian exchange.

Europeans also learned a lot from the Americas about food preservation.

Like the Incas dried some potatoes for instance, which made them lighter and easier to transport,

and then would later reconstitute them so they could be eaten, a strategy which fortified

messengers along the Inca’s extensive network of roads.

Similar processes came to be used in Europe and would eventually be used to fortify astronauts,

who often eat reconstituted dehydrated food.

And over time potatoes and maize (know here as corn) increased overall calories available

to Europeans because they could be dried and stored in huge quantities.

And that decreased starvation and increased populations.

Meanwhile, as we’ve discussed, the travel of microbes to the Americas devastated communities

there, and a range of Afroeurasian animals--horses, sheep, and pigs to name a few--arrived in

the New World for the first time.

In some ways, these new animals were useful of course, but they also did extensive damage,

stripping away vegetation necessary for soil conservation and trampling farm land.

And deforestation began with the clearing of forests for sugar cane production, as we

discussed earlier, a process that accelerated in Central and South Americas through the

twentieth century.

In Europe, sugar was initially such a precious luxury that a sprinkle of it was all that

even the wealthy could afford.

Queen Isabella of Castille and Spain gave a small box of sugar to her daughter as a

Christmas present to be treasured.

[[TV: Chocolate]] Chocolate began as a ceremonial drink for the powerful, as it was among the

Aztecs.

But as European communities became wealthier, more people transitioned from subsistence

living to being able to afford goods from distant places.

Treats of sugar, chocolate, tea, coffee and tobacco transformed attitudes, while the hot

water that was needed for making tea and coffee and hot cocoa is thought to have extended

the life spans in Europe by killing water-born germs.

And slowly the English and some of Spain and Portugal’s other competitors established

their own colonies—the English had the unsuccessful colony of Roanoke in the 1580s, and then Jamestown

in 1607, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620.

Some of these settlers came in families but many came as single men and occasionally single

women.

And in the developing propaganda war among these rivals, English latecomers to the Atlantic

world promoted an idea that came to be called the “Black Legend.”

It maintained that unlike the tolerant and kind English Protestants, the Spanish were

bigoted Catholics, brutal and destructive of local people.

That would be what Psychologists call “projection.”

Today we know that English settlers slaughtered local peoples with abandon—even people on

whom their own survival depended because many adventurers had no knowledge of farming.

Moreover most English settlers were as bigoted as other Europeans in those days.

But the “Black Legend” was a really powerful idea in history for a long time--in fact,

when I was a kid growing up in Florida, I was told that it was unfortunate Florida had

been a Spanish colony, because the English were much kinder rulers.

So by the end of the seventeenth century, the rush for trade and empire was in full

swing.

Plantations based on New World tobacco had been set up in North America and sugar mills

in the Caribbean and South America.

Mining and many other lucrative enterprises as well as the promise of exploitable land

kept the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans crowded with voyagers.

All the while most native people ruled by colonizers saw the vast majority of their

labor’s value exported.

It was the beginning of the true globalization we experience today, complete with all of

its contradictions and complexities.

We live in a world today of tremendous abundance where a pinch of sugar is not generally seen

as a great Christmas present.

Starvation and child mortality are more rare than they have ever been.

But we also live in a world with profound inequality and injustice, where the powerful

have legal and social protections that the weak do not.

It’s important to remember that in all those senses we are the products of history--but

of course we are also producing history.

Thanks for watching.

I’ll see you next time.

________________

[i] Bernal Dias, quoted in Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization, 7th ed.

(Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2009) 419.

[ii] Bartolomé Las Casas, “Thirty Very Juridical Propositions” (1552) quoted in

Bonnie G. Smith, ed., Modern Empires: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)

64-67.