Linda A. Newson

From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century

Based on exceptionally rich private papers of Portuguese slave traders, this study provides unique insight into the diet, health and medical care of slaves during their journey from Africa to Peru in the early seventeenth century.

The Demographic Impact of Colonization

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas resulted in what was perhaps the greatest demographic collapse in history. In 1492 the native population is estimated to have been between fifty and sixty million; by the mid-seventeenth century it had fallen to between five and six million. Subsequently, it recovered slowly. But even today the indigenous population is only about half of its pre-Columbian size. However, not all groups declined equally or have shared in the recovery; many have become extinct, and others have been transformed through cultural change and racial mixing. For many Indians, biological survival has been achieved at the expense of cultural change. The decline in the native population and the expansion of other social groups was a consequence of the introduction of Old World diseases and the arrival of immigrants who set in motion economic, social, and political changes that fundamentally altered the character and distribution of the population. According to Alexander von Humboldt, by the beginning of the nineteenth century Indians accounted for only about 37 percent of Latin America’s total population of twenty-one million, whereas the mixed races accounted for about 30 percent. However, these overall proportions varied widely according to the extent of the native population’s decline, the intensity of Iberian and African immigration, and the types of institutions and enterprises used to control, “civilize,” and exploit native peoples. These interactive processes reflected not only colonial objectives, but also the nature of the societies that Europeans encountered. Demographic trends were a barometer of economic and social change as well as a formative influence upon it. The relationship was reciprocal and complex.

The Depopulation of Nicaragua in the Sixteenth Century

This paper aims to provide...evidence for changes in the Indian population [of Nicaragua] during the sixteenth century and to assess the relative importance of different factors in its decline. Estimates of the population during the period preceding the Spanish conquest are reviewed. It is suggested that by 1581 the population had declined by over 92 percent and that the primary cause of this decline was the slave trade. (EXCERPT)

The slave-trading accounts of Manoel Batista Peres, 1613–1619: Double-entry bookkeeping in cloth money

This study examines the accounts of the Portuguese New Christian trader, Manoel Batista Peres. These private accounts, found in the Archivo General de la Nación in Lima, Peru, were associated with the trading of slaves on the Upper Guinea Coast in the early seventeenth century. The accounts take the double-entry format but, in the absence of a metallic currency, were kept in cloth money. Combining evidence from the accounts themselves, with the context in which Peres conducted his business, the study explores the reasons why he kept his accounts in this format. It shows how this system of accounting could be adapted to a non-monetised economy and contributes to the debate over the relationship between double-entry bookkeeping and the rise of capitalism.

Cultural evolution: a basic concept for human and historical geography

Abstract The concept of cultural evolution profoundly affected the objectives and methods employed in the social sciences in the earlier part of this century but it has largely been ignored by geographers. In recent years a number of American cultural anthropologists have re-examined the concept of cultural evolution, including Sahlins and Service, who consider that cultural evolution is analogous to biological evolution involving the diversification of cultural forms through adaptive modification and the progress of culture through successive levels of development. They have called these two processes specific evolution and general evolution respectively and from these two perspectives on cultural evolution they have developed the Law of Cultural Dominance. Certain operational problems exist in the application of the concept of cultural evolution, but once they have been surmounted it promises to constitute a valuable mode of explanation in the analysis of cultures and cultural change.

Disease and immunity in the pre-Spanish Philippines

It is generally asserted that Filipino populations did not suffer the same demographic collapse that followed Spanish conquest in the Americas because they had previously acquired immunity to Old World diseases through trading contacts with Asia. This assertion is examined by trying to establish which diseases were present in the islands in pre-Spanish times and whether populations there could have acquired immunity to them. This is done through an analysis of the evidence for the presence of infections in China and Japan in particular and the existence of trading contacts with and between the Philippine islands. The likelihood of immunity being acquired is addressed first through a discussion of the physical and human geography of the islands and what is known of the epidemiology of individual diseases from modern scientific research. Second, it reviews evidence from early colonial documents and Filipino dictionaries for the presence and impact of Old World diseases in the early colonial period. The study suggests that Filipino populations had not acquired significant immunities to acute infections in pre-Spanish times, and that their limited demographic impact in the colonial period derived more from the particular geography of the islands. It suggests that in terms of its disease history, the Philippines had more in common with the Pacific islands than mainland Asia, and that the microbiological boundary between the Old World and the New is better conceived of as a broad zone.

Labour in the Colonial Mining Industry of Honduras

Gold and silver production in Honduras probably never exceeded 5% of that produced in Spanish America at any one time during the colonial period, but it was of considerable importance to the local economy and employed a significant proportion of the total workforce. In Spanish America as a whole the types of labour that were employed in mining were extremely varied. During the early Conquest period Indian slaves were used to pan gold in the Antilles, and later Mexican silver mining relied on the employment of free labour supplemented by that of Indian and Negro slaves. In Colombia the repartimiento provided Indians for mining up to 1729, by which time the Indian population and gold production had declined, but in Peru the mita continued to supply labour for the mines until its abolition in 1812, although by that time the mines had become heavily dependent on free labour. The dominant type of labour employed in mining in any one area at any one time appears to have been strongly influenced by the availability of Indian labour, which was largely determined by the size of the Indian population and the number of competing demands for labour, and by the profitability of mining, which determined the ability of miners to overcome shortages of labour. These influences were very apparent in the mining industry in Honduras, where during the colonial period many different types of labour were employed: Indian slaves, Indians working in the service of encomenderos, Negro slaves, Spanish immigrant workers, Indians working under the repartimiento and free labourers.

Highland-lowland contrasts in the impact of old world diseases in early colonial Ecuador

Old World epidemics played a major role in the demographic collapse of native peoples after 1492. In estimating aboriginal populations it is often assumed that once introduced Old World diseases spread unhindered and their impact was uniform. This paper indicates that there were often marked regional differences in impact of Old World diseases which were related not only to environmental conditions, but also to the size and character of native societies. Drawing on research on the demographic history of early colonial Ecuador, it demonstrates that there were marked regional differences in levels of depopulation, particularly between the highlands and lowlands. It argues that the presence of tropical fevers provides an inadequate explanation for the higher levels of depopulation in the lowlands and goes on to suggest that regional differences in the impact of Old World diseases were influenced by the size of Indian populations, their settlement patterns, forms of subsistence, social organization and ideology. These affected not only disease mortality, but also the ability of native groups to recover.

Making Medicines in Early Colonial Lima, Peru

Making Medicines in Early Colonial Lima examines how apothecaries in Lima were trained, ran their businesses, traded medicinal products and prepared medicines; thereby throwing light on the relationship between medicine and empire, and the development of early modern science.

Diets, Food Supplies, and the African Slave Trade in Early Seventeenth-Century Spanish America

Much has been written about the spread of Old World crops and livestock in the Americas. However, very little is known, except in very general terms, about the availability of different foods, diets and nutrition, particularly among the common people, in different regions of Spanish America in the early colonial period. This derives in part from the shortage of evidence, but it also reflects the difficulties of researching these complex issues, where environmental conditions, access to land and labor, income distribution, regulation of food supplies and prices, as well as food traditions, all interact.