SECTORS

The type of political system a non-European society possessed was a poor predictor of ability to resist European aggression. Some centralized polities, notably China and Japan, retained independence.

Especially in phase 3, the capacity of indigenous rulers to control their subjects was weakened by the disintegrative societal impact of European trading and mission­ary activity. Efforts to reassert authority by persecuting outsiders or local collabora­tors often had the opposite effect of further dividing the populace and strengthening opposition to the old order. These efforts dramatized for all how weak the rulers really were. Awareness of the power vacuum tempted ambitious Europeans to move in. In these situations the indigenous pull factor was not the deliberate policy of political elites, but a condition affecting society at large that elites were unable effectively to address.⁴⁰

How a precolonial public sector was organized affected colonial policies. A centralized state that was defeated often retained social control mechanisms that the new rulers could put to use. Mark Burkholder and Lyman Johnson note that “com­pulsory labor service had been common in both the Aztec and Inca empires, and Spaniards had used it from the beginning of the colonial period for the construction of roads, aqueducts, fortifications, and public buildings and for some agricultural purposes.”⁴¹ The compulsory labor draft for Peru’s silver and mercury mines im­posed by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s was modeled and even named after the mita system devised by the Incas.

Many non-European societies operated close to the margin of subsistence, recognized communal use rights rather than individual property rights, were pri­marily rural dwellers, and depended minimally on goods traded with other societies. To assert that a private profit sector existed in these cases stretches the meaning of the term past the breaking point. In other cases, however, people were able and eager to accumulate income over and above subsistence. The rise of an indigenous private profit sector was associated, as in western Europe, with the growth of urban areas and with networks of middle- and long-distance trade.⁴³

Whether or not a private profit sector existed in a particular society prior to contact with Europeans, there is overwhelming evidence that indigenous people welcomed European consumer goods when these were introduced to local markets. The rare instances when officials tried to limit or proscribe trade with Europeans only reinforce this point, since restrictions would not have been needed had there not been high demand for what foreigners had to offer. From the outset Europeans held a monopoly over the sale of a wide range of products, if only because local artisans lacked the raw materials and technical means to make them. Europeans did not have to wait until the Industrial Revolution to shape other people’s consumption patterns. Early New World encounters showed that iron bars and glass beads were highly valued. Europeans were referred to as “iron people” and “cloth makers.”⁴⁴ Bottled alcoholic drinks were in demand on the West African slave-trading coast as well as among Amerindians.

The more limited the capacity of indigenous artisans to compete with Euro­pean traders in making goods for the local market, the more easily could agents of foreign trading companies carve out influential market niches. Force was often used at the start to gain access to local buyers. But no force was needed to sustain a niche once imported items were valued as elements of the good life. Many items were at­tractive because of their uniqueness, utility, quality, and low cost. If local artisans had been able to meet growing demands for goods in their own societies or if structures and incentives had been in place to generate a steady stream of new technologies, non-European societies would have been less vulnerable to the seductive appeal of European goods. This speculation suggests that the relative underdevelopment of indigenous private profit sectors may have facilitated European imperialism by not limiting penetration of local economies by outside commercial agents.

Imported goods conferred special status on their producers, an advantage Europeans were happy to put to noneconomic use. James Axtell’s discussion of phase i North America identifies a subtle process at work in other times and places as well: “The Europeans quickly realized that technological advantage could be turned to spiritual and political profit. As Captain George Waymouth cruised St. George’s River in 1605, he performed various feats of technological and scientific wizardry for the visiting Indians, such as picking up a knife with a magnetized sword, in order, he said, ‘to cause them to imagine some great power in us; and for that to love and feare us.’ The heavy salesmanship of the fur trade, the religious proselytizing of the mis­sions, and the political push of the farming frontier all depended for their initial success on that foundation of love and fear.”⁴⁵ From monopoly of a market niche to domination of a political system could be a short step.

Some societies were more open to the Euro-Christian message than others.

In some cases indigenous religious beliefs had the effect, though not the intent, of facilitating European takeover. Already noted were the momentous consequences of the view held by Aztec elites that Cortes should be treated with generosity and deference because he might be the returning god Quetzalcoatl. In a quite different place and time (South Africa, 1856-57) many Xhosa-speakers were persuaded by a young woman’s prophecies that their ancestors would return and that hard times— including the recent imposition of British rule—would be ended if they sacrificed their cattle. An estimated four hundred thousand cattle were slaughtered, all to no avail. The ensuing desperate situation accelerated alienation of Xhosa land and pushed millions of Africans into the white-controlled South African labor market.⁴⁶