Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion

Abstract

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Metabolic rift or metabolic shift? dialectics, nature, and the world-historical method

“…Ethnic cleansing-typically in the name of "taking away their inhumanity" (Sued-Badillo 1992)-was the order of the day in the three great military campaigns culminating in the Columbian invasions. The final waves of conquest of the Canaries (1478-1490s) and Granada (1482-1492)-which cash-strapped Castile and Aragon financed largely through slaving-were key moments in an emergent capitalism installing and reproducing a Humanity/Nature binary through an equally emergent racialized and gendered order (Nader 2002;Kicza 1992).…”

The Pursuit of Longevitiy and Continuity

“…1 Kicza John argued that Spanish merchants of the sixteenth century were less interested in investing in the Americas and more interested in competing with Portuguese and Italian merchants. 2 Nevertheless, because there was wealth to be gained by the seventeenth century, there is a state interest in investing people over the Atlantic Ocean. 3 However, Shammas says that migration was slow as the Spanish produced goods for its local market, and Portugal did not build its massive sugar plantations until it had experienced a decline in its African enterprises.…”

“…2 Nevertheless, because there was wealth to be gained by the seventeenth century, there is a state interest in investing people over the Atlantic Ocean. 3 However, Shammas says that migration was slow as the Spanish produced goods for its local market, and Portugal did not build its massive sugar plantations until it had experienced a decline in its African enterprises. 4 In agreement with European desire for economic gain, Gutierrez illustrates the Spaniards' interest in searching mineral-rich areas through the new south and north expeditions from central Mexico.…”

Cubagua’s Pearl-Oyster Beds: The First Depletion of a Natural Resource Caused by Europeans in the American Continent

“…Their tradition in Africa and in the Atlantic islands had always been to build, only, trading posts or small forts at especially promising spots (J. Kicza 1992). Pearls had to be extracted by diving.…”