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It seems that unlike British colonies, Spain's former colonies have been left in cultural and economic shambles.
Has Spain had any positive impact at all in its colonies?
The simple fact that people in all those Spanish countries see themselves as brothers/sisters is a huge positive impact.
You have to speak Spanish and live in a Spanish community to see that.
I'll give you the example of Venezuelans fleeing economic disaster and traveling by foot through several countries.
There's 1000s of stories about Venezuelans walking with nothing and many people in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, etc. waiting for them to walk by to give them something to eat and clothing.
I can think of one - somehow the mix of Iberian, Native American, and African blood in the proper ratio over the centuries has given Brazilian women the unique trait of genetically perfect asses.
Well that's Portuguese colony, but close enough.
Lots of Italians in Brazil too. The Japanese move there also.
A great positive impact of the Spanish Empire in the Americas is one language can be used for daily communication in 18 countries plus Puerto Rico. That doesn't include the 40 million or so Spanish language speakers in the USA. I have visited a majority of these countries and lived in a few, and the Spanish language has been a part of my life since I was young.
We Spaniards are children of Rome unlike you, the anglos. And like Rome we only see empires. All the Spanish possessions in America had the same legality as the peninsula. A subject of the king of Spain in Lima was the same as a subject of the king in Seville. While the Anglos only see colonies with which to trade, Spain as heir to Rome does not colonize, but rather brings civilization to the barbarian territories. We build cathedrals, cities, universities, palaces, bridges and ports. India was British for several centuries. Of that only 2 or 3 Victorian buildings remain. The Spanish presence in America is in the language, the buildings, the surnames, the religion, the food and especially in the blood. A Spanish is not racist. That is why we mix with the indigenous people unlike the English tavern keepers and pirates who took their women on the ships. The Spanish were single, hoping to start a new life.
Half of your country was ours.
The last time that a foreign people or army occupied the entirety of my country was 15 centuries ago, the Visigoths.
Neither Arabs or Napoleon fully occupied Spain. The Russia of the south west
The romans occupied Gallia in few years. The romans needs 200 years to occupied all the Iberian peninsula.
We were the most prosperous imperial province of Rome to which we gave 2 of its best emperors.
We stop Islam and reconquer our country.
In my city, León, capital of his own kingdom, there were two unique event, the ascent to the throne of Urraca I, the first woman to reign in her own right. he inherited the kingdom when his father died in a Europe where a woman did not inherit even the bed where she slept.
And in 1188 we had the first legislative assembly with the people in the San Isidoro basilica, 200 meters from my house.
King Alfonso IX, in addition to nobility and bishops, decided that the representatives of the cities, merchants and artisans should come to discuss the affairs of the kingdom. Out of that assembly advanced laws emerged for the time, such as the inviolability of the home.
My country has conquered a continent in 50 years with just a few thousand men
The first human rights laws with the Burgos laws where they said that all the people including the indigenous people were sons of God.
We made the first round the world . The first global empire
What do we contribute? With words that that pirate and innkeeper people called the English doesn't know
Dignity
Honor
We are a civilization makers people... others ... pirates
As Don Blas de Lezo said, distinguished captain of the Spanish army that defeated Great Britain at the siege of Cartagena de Indias
"A good spanish must always **** looking at england"
At the end of the 18th century it was said that in the city of Mexico there were as many carriages as in Paris. It was prosperous and rich. full of palaces. We Spaniards are not to blame for betraying their empire and their king and founding all those unstable and decadent republics.
The United States could NEVER go out into the Pacific facing the Spanish empire. an empire from Buenos Aires to Canada. From Naples to the Philippines.
A fact that you do not know. most of the realistic armies that defended Spain in the independence forces were made up of indigenous, black and mestizo people who knew that the Empire was the way to be protected from the creole elites that formed the independence groups and that they saw in their republics a way to control and steal now without the tutelage of Madrid.
The cojones that we Spaniards have that after 10 years of wars against the French who left the country exhausted, we still fight as always, with honor and gallantry in America, making the wars of independence last more than 10 years. despite the fact that poor, destroyed, distant and small Spain had to fight on a continent 20 times larger and on several fronts.
What a great people we are especially angry. there is not enough land to run away from us
What egocentric comment
No. I'm not egocentric. Only a spanish.
Plus ultra
Go beyond
This is our motto
What a great post!
"We Spaniards are children of Rome unlike you, the anglos." This my friend is so true and northern Europeans fail to see the significance of this in the way one thinks and lives. They will never understand nor want to.
Being of Roman Italian origin, I have always felt a strong bond with Spaniards more so than with any other Europeans.
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