Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Putting it crudely, the rule of thumb seems to be that wherever you can exterminate the natives (or at least drive them into a corner somewhere), and resettle the country with Europeans, a relatively prosperous country, like Europe, emerges. Where there are too many natives for that, and the most you can do is enslave them, a Third World country results. New Zealand is perhaps a partial exception, but about the only one I can think of.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this. If you take a larger view of history, there was a time when China and India comprised 50% of the world GDP. Christopher Columbus set sail to find India. They slowly wen't in to decline, to the point where a tiny nation like Britain captured them.
The Egyptian civilazation was also very well known as well as the Roman civilzation. Today's Egypt and Italy are a far cry from their heyday. Italy has fared much better. Iraq, Iran, Syria all had very well known civilaztions.
While one can't predict the future, like they say history repeats itself. Looks like China and India are rising again and if the west doesn't do something, they may decline. After all the Arabs did rule parts of Europe for centuries before they were beaten back and they just disappeared and became more fundamentalist.
It almost looks like a relay marathon. For a while the Asians seem to be way ahead and then they rest and the Europeans lead again and of course the last few centuries you have the Americas. The Arabs are not doing too bad either now-well at least until oil is the main form of energy.
White/European nations have been in long periods of decline too. Even today, some of the East European nations I have visited, I wouldn't exactly call them 1st world. They look good and you won't find poverty like in third world, but I wouldn't call it first world.
Who knows are we in for a period of Asian resurgance while the west takes a breather? It is tough to tell from our vantage point in history. After all the colonisers Britain and Spain are really not doing that well either!
High quality of life Spanish countries -
Mexico (has an HDI higher than Russia and many of the British Caribbean colonies.
Cuba (has a lower infant mortality rate and is pretty self sufficient, providing a decent quality of life at the same time while being isolated.)
Dominican Republic (slight electric problems, but those will be sorted out with time)
Florida, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, etc. etc. (They're part of the US)
Argentina, Uruguay, Chile - very diverse, highly developed, wealthy countries
Panama, Costa Rica - with the exceptions of indigenous populations, VERY developed and wealthy
Many British east/west Indies colonies are experiencing horrific poverty, Belize is on the same level or lower than many central American nations
English historian, John Elliot, wrote recently that if England would have discovered Mexico in 1492, they would have acted just the same way that the Spanish.
According to John Elliot, there was no other way to conquer Mexico.
He stated that if England would have received the same amount of gold that Spain received, they would have acted in a similar imperial manner.
VERY interesting points.....and quite possibly true. When the Spanish "discovered" Mexico, it was already essentially a heavily-populated 'nation'. It had an elaborate society, somewhat of an infrastructure, and the Spaniards' arrival was probably not a great deal different than if they'd 'invaded' Iraq or Russia or Egypt at the time. It would have been a 'nation' invading a 'nation'.
Over a century later, when the British arrived in Virginia in 1607 (and Massachusetts shortly thereafter), they encountered a wilderness in which the locals were much less highly organized. While small pockets of 'settled agriculture' did exist elsewhere in North America, many of its inhabitants were wandering nomads, and HUGE parts of it were virtually uninhabited. It was an entirely different sort of invasion.
Another point I've heard touched upon was the state of British, and Spanish, society at the time of arrival. While England 'led the world' in the matter of personal freedoms and the 'rights of the individual', Spain remained firmly anchored in the 'Dark Ages' for much longer. Thus in the 120 years (or so) between the arrival of the Spaniards and the arrival of the British, there was the equivalent of SEVERAL centuries in the 'modernization' of their own societies. Spain, and England, simply "looked at" their conquests in the New World in vastly different ways. This, plus the difference in densely-populated Mexico and very THINLY populated 'US and Canada', caused great differences in how these 'colonies' evolved after conquest.
Impoverished is a relative term. In this particular case, the relativity applies to the cities which began as farm colonies and connected to the British mercantile system.
And you would be more accurate to state that portions of Argentina look like Europe.
My thesis was a broad, general one, not intended to be exception free, but rather representative of the majority of such cases.
Perhaps impoverished is not the word you are looking for. I have been to many places around the world India, the Middle East, Euopre. I have laso been to Mexico, Blize, Peru and Venezuela. I must say when I went to Caracas I was pretty impressed. The city was huge and as advanced as anything you would find in Europe with large shopping mall, metro, cyber cafes etc. Lima wasn't so bad but slightly less devloped and many other Peruvian cities paled in comparison. But the worse of all is Belize City, whose downtown area consists mostly of a bunch run down looking shacks (delapidated wooden houses). And that was an Anglo colony.
Anyway, I would say the main difference between North America (excluding Mexico) and Latin America is the distributiion of wealth. You do have some pretty ritzy areas in Latin America with people living affluent life styles. But the Middle class tends to be a small percent maybe about 20%. and the lower classes though far from Impoverished, make up the greater majority and live in makeshift homes in the surrounding hills. This seems to be the norm in many of theses areas from I have seen. And the reason is I believe is because of a strong sentiment of classism, and no strong sense of solidarity amaong the people as a whole. the Spaniards brought this with them.
VERY interesting points.....and quite possibly true. When the Spanish "discovered" Mexico, it was already essentially a heavily-populated 'nation'. It had an elaborate society, somewhat of an infrastructure, and the Spaniards' arrival was probably not a great deal different than if they'd 'invaded' Iraq or Russia or Egypt at the time. It would have been a 'nation' invading a 'nation'.
Over a century later, when the British arrived in Virginia in 1607 (and Massachusetts shortly thereafter), they encountered a wilderness in which the locals were much less highly organized. While small pockets of 'settled agriculture' did exist elsewhere in North America, many of its inhabitants were wandering nomads, and HUGE parts of it were virtually uninhabited. It was an entirely different sort of invasion.
The Spanish arriving in what is now Argentina, Uruguay and Chile also encountered lightly populated areas with wilderness and in which the locals were highly disorganized.
This may explain why the Southern Cone fared differently than the rest of Latin America and why its history has much in common with the British colonies in the New World. Argentina and Uruguay were essentially countries of immigration like the US and Canada in which the indigenous population was exterminated. Argentina's largest nonwhite group is not indigenous people but Asians for this reason.
I played "Sid Meier's Pirates" and they were none too sympathetic to the spanish in their historical discussion of the caribbean colonization and piracy. 80% of the slave trade went to spanish settlements, slaves worked the land while the spanish owners were lazy and corrupt. Which is why they were such easy pickings for the british and privateers.
India has some pretty horrific slums...My son goes to Bombay on business and has sent pictures of some of the worst poverty I've ever seen. One was a picture of a family on the side of the airport runway with their few possesions up in a tree while they slept on the ground.
Go to Google Earth and check out some of the pictures...They are actually labeled.. Slum Beach...Slum by airport..Slum by trade Center...
Given the climate of Bombay or any third world country where the very poor are forever separated from a life of freezing to death (one of the greatest luxuries in the world?), and having been to Bombay myself in 1990, seeing this doesn't tear my heart out like seeing it in the colder regions of the world.
Imagine what our country would like if there were year-round Bombay weather in NYC or Chicago! Poverty would be much more visible.
Having recently read David Shipler's The Working Poor, which stunned me into the realization we have malnutrition clinics in this country, we just simply hide our poverty and starvation better than other countries.
When I've seen tin-shacks clinging to hillsides in Central America, what wouldn't our very poor in our country do to have such a luxury for all the world to see. Permanent freedom from frostbite, no A/C or heater required.
And then....I repeat, Latin America and the Spanish/Portuguese empire is OLDER....
It's not fair to compare the US with Latin America.
The US needs to be compared to Latin America 200 years from now.
When the Pilgrims set foot on Spanish territory, the Spanish colonies were thriving. There were universities, big cities and organized societies.
Most of the prejudices against those societies were based on the Spanish Black Legend, protestant agitprop from Holland based on lies and exxagerations. The Black Legend is still alive and kicking in the US, while in Europe is just a vague memory.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
