The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World, c. 1450-c. 1850

摘要

If we go back to colonial days there is a good case for viewing Europe and the Americas as essentially one. All the territory from Hudson's Bay to Tierra del Fuego had a European face for hundreds of years. Starting in the late fifteenth century and growing steadily, huge tracts of land were sucked into the European orbit - Paris, London, Lisbon and Madrid. But to consolidate their hold, the conquistadores often killed or enslaved the indigenous people - all in the name of Christian civilization. Aztec and Inca power was destroyed. But "New Spain" was so enormous it could not be ruled wholly from the top down. Instead, the Spaniards made local alliances such as Hernan Cortes' pact with the Tlaxcala, arch-enemy of the Aztecs; the viceroys sometimes ruled through local intermediaries. The peopling of these enormous lands was done by migrants from Europe and Africa, some voluntary, others not. It is the familiar stuff of textbook history: puritans landing in the Mayflower in 1621, Creole planters in the West Indies, Spanish hunters after silver and gold, men seeking work on South American railways or cattle ranches in Argentina or the Chilean copper mines.