I thought it would be very interesting to compare the British colonies and Spanish colonies in the Americas. 3 main topics: Religion, Politics, Economy
Religion:
In terms on religion, most Spaniards were Catholic and were concerned with turning natives into Christians. They believed that confessions and battles for the New World would help to forgive all of their sins. However, they can not be forgiven for raping and killing millions of native people.
The British could be described as fugitives. They were Christians, however they sought new rights and freedoms from in the New World. The British tended not to mix with the Natives, and just killed many of them.
Politics:
The Spaniards believed that they were all nobles and that they did not have to work, forcing slaves and natives to work for them. They thought work was below them. Your blood and your name determined your status.
For the British, work was an honor and should be done by everyone. The point was to escape British catholic oppression and so nobility did not matter, this was part of the old system.
Economy
The land in Latin America was extremely rich. They mass produced and grew many different products. This was done with complete exploitation of natives.
The British were less fortunate in terms of their land. They had more needs for industry and manufacturing. They had no native slaves but they used African slaves for almost all of their work.
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Geography:
ReplyDeleteThe British had a clear advantage in the America's, mainly North America, over the rest of the world for a few mains reasons. First of all, they were much closer to the America's than any other civilizations with the ability to sail across an ocean. They also had the winds in their favor because the winds of the Atlantic Ocean blew steadily in the same direction and once the British figured out the wind patterns, they became experts at navigating the Atlantic. Another thing that the British had in their favor was the fact that since Chinese, Indian, and Muslim maritime activities were very successful, these civilizations had very little interest in moving their business elsewhere.
The Spanish also had a fairly easy time making their way over to the America's, taking over land from the midwest of North American to the southwest of South America. This gave them a huge advantage when it came to resources because, since their territory was so spread out, they could obtain virtually all resources they the needed within their own empire, such as wood, meat, and various crops. With a huge amount of land on the coastline, fishing was very easy for the Spanish territories.
Dylan,
ReplyDeleteYou said that Britain was closer to the America's than any other civilizations with the ability to sail across an ocean. However, you didn't mention other nations with powerful navies (such as Spain and Portugal), so I would add those to the list of countries that had an advantage when it came to conquering the New World.
You talked about a lot of the benefits that Spain had by having a large, spread out territory. However, there were also a number of issues with this strategy of rapid, widespread exploration. Because the Spanish Empire was so spread out, it was difficult to defend. Also, they didn't spend enough time fortifying their already conquered lands, and uniting their empire. Instead, they simply focused on conquering as much land as they could, as fast as they could. Although this helped them develop an extensive trade network (among other perks that you mentioned in your comment), the Spanish empire constantly suffered from internal instability.