SOSC 1430 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Expansionism, Natural Resource, Eurocentrism
3 Oct 2016
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Conquest: a small handful of spaniards, portuguese, manage to conquer an entire continent. Different than later capitalist entrepreneurs (mid 1800s) Entailed territorial occupation - establish colonies, control of empire. Exercised highly centralized, military and political control. Tended to reproduce feudal type of relations that existed in southern europe at the time. Not about introducing capitalism to latin america, but transferring colonizing systems" forces and social relations from their home. To control trade routes: key question for european nations. Christianity - believed to be a civilizing mission . Racial superiority - eurocentrism - embedded profoundly during colonization and long-lasting effects afterwards. Progress (discussed earlier in course) - bringing progress, advancing wellbeing of societies that were colonized. Strati ed societies were deeply divided internally: divide and conquer. Experience varied whether by looking at large or small scale societies. Class societies - tributary - seen as opportunity to exploit. Organized as states - organized as kingdoms/empires.
