Summarize the interaction the people of the Caribbean, Aztec, and Inca had with the exploring Spanish.

Tainos -

-First site of interaction between European and American people was the Caribbean

-Cultivated manioc and other crops, live in small villages under the authority of chiefs who allocated land to families and supervised community affairs

-Showed interest in glass, beads, and metal tools that Spanish mariners brought as trade goods and offered little resistance to the visitors

Spanish Arrival -

-Columbus’ original plan was to build forts and trading posts where merchants could trade with local people for products desired by European consumers

-Settlers first made attempts to supports their society by mining gold

-Recruitment of labor came through an institution known as the encomienda, which gave Spanish settlers he right to compel Tainos to work in their mines or fields

-Encomenderos assumed responsibility to look after their workers’ health and welfare and to encourage conversion to Christianity

-Encomenderos worked their charges hard and punished them severely when they did not deliver the expected quantities of gold or work sufficiently hard in the fields

Smallpox -

-When smallpox reached the Caribbean region and touched off devastating epidemics among the people of the western hemisphere, major demographic decline set in

-Under pressure of epidemic disease, the native population of the Caribbean plummeted from six million to a few thousands

-Tainos culture basically disappeared, and by the mid-seventeenth century Caribbean society consisted of a small class of European administrators and large masses of African slaves