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American possibilities/American problems

A consideration of the role of coerced labor and the development of territorial empires. Special attention will be given to the "Indian Question" and the development of Castilian and Portuguese American administration.

Reading: Bakewell, chs. 7 & 8, and pp. 310-314.

1. What roles did monks and priests have in overseas administration and policies regarding American Indian populations?
2. Why did the introduction of new disease microorganisms in the Americas after 1492 have such devastating demographic and social effects on American Indian populations?
3. Why were European economic benefits from the Americas so long dependent on the use of coerced labor?
4. What factors enhanced the authority of Castilian and Portuguese royal authorities in the Americas?
5. Why didn't Castilian monarchs prescribe strict limitations on the jurisdictions of their various officials?
6. What were the effects of granting creoles access to American judicial posts through the sale of offices beginning in 1687?
7. Why were provincial offices, like those of the corregidor and alcalde mayor, the only American posts harder for creoles to obtain after the sale of such offices began?
8. Why didn't Portuguese American administration develop as rapidly and elaborately as Castilian administration?
9. Why was the Brazilian donatary system only successful in São Vicente and Pernambuco?
10. How did the social position of royal officials in Brazil compare to that of those in Asia and East Africa?
11. Why were officials associated with judicial administration so prominent in the Crown administrations of Castilian and Portuguese America?
12. Why were Castilian and Portuguese churchmen so much more successful in their efforts to integrate the American indigenous population into the new monarchical regimes than they were in much of Africa and Asia?
13. Why was the status of the American Indian a central policy issue in Castile and Portugal?
14. What impact did Christian missionaries have on cultural and linguistic patterns in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru?
15. Why were missionary efforts so much more troubled in Peru than in the Valley of Mexico?
16. Why did Jesuits (members of the Society of Jesus) become so much more prominent in Church affairs in South America than in Mexico?
17. How would you characterize the economic position of Church institutions in Castilian and Portuguese America?
18. Why did serious disputes between officials from different administrative bodies so often begin over seemingly trivial matters?

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Revised:  28 July 1999

URL:  http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/spemp/reading.15.html