Another dissimilarity in the social systems was the relationship between the natives and the European settlers. When the conquistadores conquered Latin America, it destroyed two large and long-standing empires in the process. They also found large deposits of gold and silver in the mines of Latin America. As a result, Spain gained more out of its colonies financially but because of these same precious metals and the history of the native people, the relationship between the Spaniards and the natives of Latin America was strained. This was because the Spaniards forced the natives to mine gold and silver as part of an encomienda system created by Nicolás de Ovando. The system had natives offer labor as tribute, first to the Crown, and then to an encomendero. In return the native would be provided protection by said encomendero as well as be educated in Christianity. (Williamson, 109, 111) This was all in contrast though to Queen Isabella’s declaration: “…declared them [the natives] to be free and equal subjects of the Crown; …” (Williamson, 109). When the encomienda system was changed by the New Laws of the Indies, the Spaniards had a violent reaction that eventually forced the Crown to let the New Laws lapse. (Williamson, 111) In North America however, there were no precious metals to be mined. Also, the Native Americans were considered a separate people, part of another nation; this was acknowledged when Britain passed The Royal Proclamation of 1763 which recognized the rights of Native Americans to the land they occupied. (wikipedia.org) Thus, interaction with the Native Americans was very limited. Also, the English were not so focused on missionary attempts with the Natives; they had their own religious freedom to worry about. (Bailey, Kennedy, 94) In Latin America though, religion was a large problem. The native people were declared to be equal under the Crown largely because of Spain’s missionary objective. The Crown wanted to bring Christianity to a new people and saw this as their duty given to them by God. The encomienda system undermined this aim although the priests and missionaries worked hard to bring the faith to the Indians; so hard, in fact, that it was the priests who spoke against the injustice being done to the natives (Williamson, 111-112) and who eventually, would lead them into rebellion along with the creoles.
Spain and England were both monarchies and so, when they entered the New World, they both set up patriarchal governing systems. These systems consisted of colonies, or viceroyalty, each of which was governed by a royal governor, or viceroy. These governors were the principal representation of the monarchs in the New World. (The Formation of Latin America) Like the royal governors, the viceroys had a panel of judges called the audiencia to oversee the legal matters of the settlers. The Viceroyalties were divided into smaller districts called corregidores, similar to colonial British North America. Democracy was only present at the local level in both North and South America; in North America the town meetings in Plymouth, Massachusetts required a majority vote and in Latin America there were town councils called cabildos. (The Formation of Latin America) Though the House of Burgesses was representative, any decision it came to could be vetoed by the royal governor. There were few dissimilarities; one was that Spanish cities were far more organized than British cities in that public buildings were near each other, the cities were divided into grids that allowed for straight roads, etc. (Williamson, 81) Another dissimilarity is that Latin America had essentially two republics under the control of the King—that of the Spaniards and the other of the Indians (Williamson, 10) whereas only the colonists were under the rule of the British Crown.
Colonial British North America and Latin America have different social systems because of the way England and Spain took over and the reasons behind the conquests. Spain conquered and essentially, stole the land from the natives and then forced them to work it under harsh labor conditions; plus its missionary objective was to bring Christianity to the natives. England did not have that problem because North America had very little precious metals and a motive behind many settlements was religious freedom. Also, English settlements started out very small in comparison to the Spanish settlers and so did not pose the same threat to the native people that the Spaniards did. They have similar political systems because both the Old World countries are monarchies and establishing the ruling of the crown was one of the first things both nations did. The similarities and differences in political and social systems of colonial North and South America are key components to understanding how today’s nations came to be.
Bibliography
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Williamson, Edwin. The Penguin History of Latin America. London: Penguin Books, 1992
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"The Formation of Latin America 1492-C. 1800." DISCovering World History. 2003. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/>.
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Bailey, Thomas A., and David M. Kennedy, et. all. The American Pageant. 11th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.
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Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
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"Royal Proclamation of 1763." Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. 4 Oct. 2006. 4 Oct. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763>.
