We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
In a decade marked off by the quincentenaries of the voyages of Columbus (1492) and that of Vasco da Gama (1498) or perhaps more chronologically and interculturally correctly by the 1502 arrival of three Native Americans at the court of Henry VII of England, it is appropriate to take stock of the field of ‘European expansion’ and to ask if, in fact, such a field exists, or ought to exist, or still means the same thing that it did a generation ago. The celebrations and condemnations that accompanied the quincentenary in 1992 refocused public attention on the question of European expansion and its impact on history of die Americas and of the world. Voices long suppressed and opinions never before expressed found new audiences and joined with scholarly and semi-scholarly works to make Columbus and all that followed in his wake a topic of general public concern. It is dierefore appropriate to take stock once again of what we know about die Era of European Expansion prior to die emergence of modern imperialism in die nineteenth century.
* This essay was prepared for a meeting of the Society of European Expansion and Global Interaction (American Historical Association, Chicago.January 1995). The author wishes to thank Michael Adas, Karen Kupperman, Jack P. Greene, Amy Bushnell and others at that meeting who provided criticism and advice.
1 A lot of ‘stock taking’ has taken place. A good example is Ida Altman and Butler, Reginald D., ‘The Contact of Cultures: Perspectives on the Quincentenary’, American Historical Review 90/2 (1994) 478–503Google Scholar.
2 Chaudhuri, K. N., ‘Politics, Trade, and the World Economy in the Age of European Expansion: Themes for Debate’, in: Pohl, Hans ed., The European Discovery of Ike World and its Economic Effects on Pre-Industrial Society, 1500–1800 (Stuttgart 1990) 1–8Google Scholar.
3 A classic formulation is Stanley and Stein, Barbara, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America (New York 1970).Google Scholar Cf. Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London 1972).Google Scholar See the discussion of this approach in Cooper, Frederick, ‘Africa and the World Economy’, in: Cooper, Frederick, Isaacman, Allen, et al., Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America (Madison 1993) 84–204Google Scholar.
4 This path was blazed by Foster, George, Culture and Contact: America's Spanish Heritage (New York 1960).Google Scholar See for example Altman, Ida, Emigrants and Society: Exlremadura and America in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley 1989)Google Scholar.
5 See Emmer, P. C. and Wesseling, H. L. eds., Reappraisals in Overseas History (Leiden 1979) 3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See the explanation of the term in Wesseling, Henk, ‘Overseas History’, in: Burke, Peter ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park Pa. 1992) 67–92Google Scholar.
6 Feierman, Steven, ‘African Histories and the Dissolution of World History’, in: Bates, Robert H., Mudime, V. Y. and O'Barr, Jean eds., Africa and the Disciplines (Chicago 1993) 167–211Google Scholar.
7 Thornton, John, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge 1992),Google Scholar provides an explicit disasporic model but the approach has been gaining adherents for some time.
8 Eltis, David, ‘Europeans and the Rise and Fall of African Slavery in the Americas: An Interpretation’, The American Historical Review 98/5 (1993) 1399–1424CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Bastide, Roger, Us Ameriques Noires: Us Civilisations Africaines dans le Nouveau Monde (Paris 1967) 97–132,Google Scholar has emphasized this problem of ‘the gods in exile’.
10 The theoretical but not the methodological problems of this approach are discussed in Mintz, Sidney and Price, Richard, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past (Philadelphia 1976).Google Scholar A model for this kind of research is provided in two particularly suggestive books by Price, Richard, First Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People (Baltimore 1983)Google Scholar; Alain's World (Baltimore 1990)Google Scholar.
11 Manning, Patrick, Slavery and African Life Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trtules (Cambridge 1990),Google Scholar presents a summary and interpretation of the major themes. The scope of this growing area of interest can be seen in the annual bibliographical surveys published by Joseph Miller in Slavery and Abolition.
12 See for example: Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
13 Pierre, and Chaunu, Huguette, Seville el I'Atlanlique (12 vols.; Paris 1959)Google Scholar; Mauro, Frederic, Portugal el I'Atlantique (Paris 1960)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Earl J., ‘American Treasure and the Rise of Capitalism’, Economical 9/27 (1929) 338–357;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHanke, Lewis, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conijuesl of America (Philadelphia 1949)Google Scholar; Konetzke, Richard, El Mesthaje y su Importancia en elDesarrollo de la Pobladon Hispano-Americana duranle la Epoca Colonial (Madrid 1947),Google Scholar and his Collectión de Documenlos para hi Historia de la Formacion Social de Hispanoamerica (4 vols.; Madrid 1953)Google Scholar.
14 I would include here such works as Levene, Ricardo, Inlroduccion de la Hisloria del Derecho Indiana (Buenos Aires 1924)Google Scholar; Maria, JoséCapdequi, Ots y, El Estado Espaňol en las Indias (Mexico City 1941)Google Scholar; Historia del Derecho Espanol en America y del Derecho Indiano (Madrid 1969)Google Scholar; Zavala, Silvio, IM Encomienda Indiana (2nd. ed.; Mexico City 1973)Google Scholar.
15 Phelan, John L., The Kingrlom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century (Madison 1967)Google Scholar; Gongora, Mario, Enamenderos y Estanderos (Santiago de Chile 1970)Google Scholar; Russell-Wood, A. J. R., Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa da Misericordia da Bahia, 1550–1755 (Berkeley 1969)Google Scholar.
16 Carmagnani, Marcello, EI Regreso de los Dioses: el Processo de Reconstitucion de la Identidad Etnica en Oaxaca. Sighs XVII y XVIII (Mexico City 1988)Google Scholar; Silverblatt, Irene, ‘Becoming Indian in the Central Andes of Seventeenth-Century Peru’, in: Prakash, Gyan ed., After Colonialism (Princeton 1995) 279–298;Google ScholarSaignes, Thierry, ‘Las Etnias de Charcas Frente al Sistema Colonial (Siglo XVII)’, Jahrlmch fur Geschkhte von Stoat Wirischaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikal (1984) 27–76.Google Scholar See also Lavalle, Bernard, LasPromesas Ambiguas: Criollismo Colonial en los Andes (Lima 1993)Google Scholar.
17 Lockhart, James and Schwartz, Stuart B., Early Latin America (Cambridge 1983)Google Scholar.
18 Many important monographs fall into this category. Excellent examples are: Spalding, Karen, Huarochiri. An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford 1984)Google Scholar; Stern, Steve, Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest. Huamanga to 1640 (Madison 1982)Google Scholar; Taylor, William, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford 1979)Google Scholar; Oss, A. C. van, Catholic Colonialism: A Parish History of Guatemala (Cambridge 1986)Google Scholar.
19 For two alternate approaches cf. MacCormack, Sabine, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru (Princeton 1991)Google Scholar; Florescano, Enrique, Memoria Mexicana: Ensayo Sobre In Reconstruccion del Pasado (Mexico City 1987)Google Scholar.
20 For a more balanced critique of the linguistic argument see Seed, Patricia, ‘“Failing to Marvel”. Atahualpa's Encounter with the Word’, Latin American Research Review 26/1 (1991) 7–32Google Scholar.
21 Lockhart, James, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford 1991)Google Scholar.
22 On the internal economy, recent studies are Fragoso, Joao Luis Ribeiro, Homens de Grossa Aventura: Acumulaçāo e Hierarquia na Praça Mermntil do Rio de Janeiro 1790–1830 (Rio de Janeiro 1992)Google Scholar; and Costa, Iraci del Nero da, Arrain-Miuda. Um Estudo sobre os Ndo-Proprietdrios de Escravos no Brasil (Sao Paulo 1992).Google Scholar On the history of mentalities good examples are Souza, Laura de Mello e, Inferno Allantico: Demonologia e Colonizacao Seculos XVI–XVIII (Sao Paulo 1993)Google Scholar; Mott, Luis, Rosa Egipciaca. Uma Santa Africana no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro 1993)Google Scholar.
23 Cunha, Manuel Carneiro da ed., Historia dos Indies do Brasil (Sao Paulo 1992)Google Scholar.
24 Pitman, Frank Wesley, The Development of the British West Indies, 1700–1763 (New Haven 1917)Google Scholar; Ragatz, Lowell J., The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean (New York 1928)Google Scholar; Pares, Richard, A West India Fortune (London 1950),Google Scholar and War and Trade in the West Indus, 1739–1763 (Oxford 1963)Google Scholar.
25 Of particular importance for West Indian scholars was Gouveia, Elsa V., Slave Society in the British Ijeeward Islands in the End of the Eighteenth Century (New Haven 1965).Google ScholarDunn, Richard, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill NC 1975)Google Scholar has had a similar effect on North American scholarship. McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell, The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill 1985) 144–169Google Scholar.
26 Fraginals, Manuel Moreno, El lngenio: Complejo Economics Social Cubano delAzucar (3 vols.; Havana 1978)Google Scholar.
27 Wachtel, Nathan, Vision des Vaincus: Ijts lndiens du Pérou devant la conquéle Espagnole (Paris 1971)Google Scholar; Lafaye, Jacques, Quetzalcoall and Guadalupe: La Formation de la Conscience Nationale au Mexique (1531–1813) (Paris 1974).Google Scholar For the modern Andean studies see for example Pease, Franklin, lnkay Kuraka: lieladones de Poder y Representation Hutorica (College Park 1990)Google Scholar; Las Ultimas Incas del Cuzco (3rd. ed.; Lima 1981)Google Scholar; Galindo, Alberto Flores, Buscando a un Inca: Idenlidtul y Utopia en los Andes (3rd ed.; Lima 1988)Google Scholar; Arislocracia y Plebe, Uma, 1760–1830: Estructura de Closes y Societlad Colonial (Lima 1984)Google Scholar; Glave, Luis Miguel, hi Rebellion de Tupac Amaru, 1780 (2nd ed.; Cuzco 1982)Google Scholar; Trajinantes: Caminos Indigenas en la Sodedad Colonial. Sighs XVl/XVII (Lima 1989)Google Scholar.
28 Price, Richard, Alain's World (Baltimore 1990) xixGoogle Scholar.
29 Stern, Steve J., ‘Paradigms of Conquest: History, Historiography, and Polities’, Ijitin American Research Review 24 (supplement; 1992) 134,Google Scholar argues that the conquest can be usefully seen as an encounter between ‘mutually ignorant others’ (p. 31).
30 Cevallos-Candau, Francisco Javier ed., Coded Encounters: Writing, Gender, and Ethnicity in Colonial Latin America (Amherst 1994)Google Scholar; Pagden, Anthony, European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism (New Haven 1993)Google Scholar; Andrien, Kenneth J. and Adorno, Rolena eds., Transatlantic Encounters: Europeans andAndeans in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley 1991)Google Scholar.
31 I have expressed these ideas more fully in Schwartz, Stuart B. ed., Implicit Understandings: Observing, Reporting, and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge 1994) 1–22Google Scholar.
32 Maxwell, Kenneth, ‘The Adantic in the Eighteenth Century: A Southern Perspective on the Need to Return to the “Big Picture”’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series (London 1993) 209–236Google Scholar.
