Light Replacing Darkness: A Story of Spanish Colonization in the Americas

The Rational Argumentator ^ | October 27, 2002 | G. Stolyarov II

[IronJack]

Beautifully written and impeccably presented. A resounding exculpation of expansionist Europe.

[breakem]

"The English, being more enlightened, had a lot of problems getting the natives to respect private property and boundaries. We still have that problem sometimes."

ROTFLMAO!

[TopQuark]

Please reread my post: I referred to (i) the colonial record of the British throughout the world and (ii) overall tolerance. Your reply still focuses on the Americas, and you apply only a single, apparently favored by you criterion of tolerance: inter-marriage. When it comes to bloodshed, intermarriage, and standing before the law is not the first and not the best criterion.

You defy basics of human nature. As I said earlier, Spaniards sent to the Americas professional soldiers whose sole occupation in life for several generations had been warfare with Moors. Compare this to the colonists who came to plant wheat. Incidentally, they came with families, so the issue of intermarriage was not even tertiary.

As for the record of tolerance, there is no need for British propaganda. Inquisition on the British Isles was instituted two centuries after Iberia. In the whole history of inquisition, the Brits burned at the stake a thousand (literally) times fewer people that in just one province of Spain in a decade. The sterilization of Spain by Isabella the Catholic speaks for itself and remains such to the present day. It may be seen in numbers and anecdotal evidence upon visiting Spain.

[onedoug]

...Al menos hasta su entrada en la Comunidad Europea.

[PatrickHenry]

South and Central America are far better off now than they were before Columbus, that's true. But the Spanish conquest and occupation were particularly brutal. Las Casas, mentioned in the article, wrote a detailed account of the brutalities of the Spanish system of slavery. The local people were dying at incredible rates, being worked to death on plantations and in the mines. The English, in contrast, never enslaved the Indians. All those picturesque Spanish missions in the American west were, in their "prime," Church-run slave plantations. Yes, they converted the natives, but they also enslaved them. In Florida, there were no native Indians when the US acquired the territiory (the Seminoles came in later). All the natives had died, or had been deported to work as slaves elsewhere in the Spanish empire.

Negro slavery was introduced by the Spanish as a humane measure, because Africans could survive the toil better than the native populations. The English settlers in North America learned the system of perpetual, hereditary negro slavery from the Spanish. Slavery persisted in some Spanish areas longer than in the US (in Cuba until the 1880s, I believe).

There is no need to discuss the activities of the Inquisition, as that is very well documented. But it should be pointed out that it terrorized the European settlers as well as the natives. The Spanish system of colonization was particularly harsh even on the Spanish settlers themselves. No local-born persons could hold governorships -- all the leadership class had to be born in Spain -- and their families had to remain in Spain as virtual hostages to the faithful performance of the ruling class in the New World. In contrast, the American Revolution was possibly because we had a large class of local leaders. England governed its colonies far less harshly than Spain.

One could go on endlessly. The differences between Spain and England are evident to this day in the vastly different cultures in North and South America. In the North, self-government is largely successful, and entrepeneurship thrives. In the South, such talents are far less evident. (I hasten to add that this is a cultural distinction, not racial.) Anyway, enough said.

[CatoRenasci]

I agree with you, the Spanish reputation for cruelty, atrocity, and intolerance is unequaled in European history before the 20th century brought us communist and fascist totalitarian states. As a European historian in my earlier days, I think the evidence against the Spanish, taken as a whole, is overwhelming. The record in Spanish America is not simple, and the indigenous civilizations (for they were indeed civilizations unlike what was found in the English and French settled areas) were hardly the noble savages of some Rousseauean rose-colored vision. That said, the record of Spanish in the Americas, and the progress to the present of the countries and peoples of the Spanish-speaking Americas, compared with that of English-speaking North America, is hardly an admirable one. I would not argue that some of the Spanish were not well-meaning, but the overall effect of Spanish rule, even 170-years after independence from Spain, is a continent full of backward countries in every respect - politically less stable than France or Italy, economic basket cases though rich in resources, and militarily bad jokes.

[ijcr]

You must be refering to the kind gentle practitioners of suttee...burning to death of a wife in her husband's funeral pyre, or was it the followers of Kali...called Thuggees, who strangled to death their victims in a bizarre ritual.(The death toll is estimated between 9-25 million Indians in the 600 years of Thuggee activity).

How about the Pathans...whose women seized and dismembered captives while they were still conscious.

Perhaps you were reflecting on the peace loving Zulu nation which executed 5,000 slaves in one ceremony.

Ronald Segal, in "Islam's Black Slaves", estimates the total number of African slaves shipped to the Muslim world at 11.5M-14M. The practice still continues today.

Those damn uncivilised British.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

The English, in contrast, never enslaved the Indians.

It was tried, and repeatedly, without success. It is fair to suggest that the culture of slavery was pretty much alien and unknown to American Indians of the Northeast. That is it was rejected by the Indians. Slavery to be successful requires that the culture one enslaves to accept it. Odd but true.

[livius]

Tienes toda la razón.

[livius]

The differences between Spain and England are evident to this day in the vastly different cultures in North and South America

Yes and no. The Spanish were forbidden by the Pope and by their King to enslave Indians. Africans could be enslaved, but they were essentially indentured servants, who like European indentured servants were to be freed at the end of a certain period.

African slaves had the right to marry, to own property and to buy their freedom - and to be freed if upon the death of their owners, if this was something the owners included in their wills. By contrast, in the Carolinas, British slave owners were not even legally permitted to free their slaves.

While the Spanish held St. Augustine (oldest city in the U.S., founded by Spain in 1565), runaway African slaves could find a refuge. They were required to accept baptism and then could join the Spanish military or simply live in the area. British colonists in South Carolina in particular hated the Spanish, because their African slaves were constantly trying to escape to St. Augustine.

That said, yes, there is a difference. Northern Europe had better legal and governance structures, certainly by the time of the emergence of what would be the United States.

But oddly enough, the country that exercised the most care regarding the rights both of indigenous populations and of African slaves was Spain.

[stands2reason]

bump for later

[onedoug]

"...a cultural distinction, not racial

Perhaps the essential aspect to be drawn from such consideration.

That we, by God's grace continue to so give history such meaning, now by the deconstruction of Islamo-Fascism, and its cynical cousin, Communism, which even yet amongst us, sits so smugly smiling by. For humanity will not remain static. That despite the eternal suffering of innocents, the West, and particularly through its Judeo-Christian ethic and The United States, has consistently advanced, and yet will project the Good into the world, as God has charged us all.

[staytrue]

The English, being more enlightened, had a lot of problems getting the natives to respect private property and boundaries

The English who originally resided in a crummy little island, tried to conquer most of the rest of the world. It seems it is the English who were not enlightened at all in that they respected the boundaries of no one and no country as they used to say with pride that the sun never sets on the English empire. They even had the gaul to start a war with China, when China banned the importation of English opium. You have an incredibly warped view of history. You seem to think that the English are entitled to take what they want, then set the boundaries as they wish, then when the original population fails to "respect" those boundaries, it is the natives fault and the English have the "enlightened" attitude of wiping out any one who opposes the boundary lines that they see fit.

[churchillbuff]

other parts of it merely Brit propaganda

My sister went to spain as a student in the late 1970s and attended an Episcopal/Anglican church there - - - a church which was forbidden by the government to put up a sign out front. I believe things have changed since then, but that was less than 30 years ago - the Spaniards were still up to their bigoted ways. The record of toleration in protestant countries is vastly superior to that in Spain.

[churchillbuff]

The differences between Spain and England are evident to this day in the vastly different cultures in North and South America Yes and no.

Sorry, but mostly YES. That's why the big migration is from South America and Latin America up to the countries and cultures that reflect English settlement and influence. You don't have big problem in Mexico or the rest of the impoverished, politically corrupt south, of Americans or Canadians sneaking in as illegal aliens.

[1_Of_We]

You have an incredibly warped view of history.

My view is that, throughout history, one group of people has been occupying the land(s) of other groups of people, usually by force.
The English implemented a method of establishing property 'ownership' with boundary lines for those who would (or could) be 'citizens'.

[karlamayne]

"I sometimes think that a subtext of history is precisely the war against the various death cults that once ruled the earth."

Once? What about the 40 million abortees here?