Suchergebnisse

First Published in 1966. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Although the events of the recent Mexican tragedy cannot be seen today in as clear light as that which will be thrown on them for the next generation, still the political history of the communities established by Spain in America furnishes a certain measure of enlightment. This history seems to indicate that the Spanish colonies were unfortunate in that the government of the United States, in its early decades, appeared to them as a desirable model for the Spanish-American states that were created after the war of independence. The English colonies, left to themselves, had a normal development along lines determined by their environment and their inherent social forces. The Spanish colonies, founded by authority, were developed under a protective system designed to subserve the interests of Spaniards. The disappearance of the Indians before the invading English cleared the field for the democracy that was produced by the colonial conditions of the frontier. The incorporation of the Indians as a subordinate class in the colonial society of Spanish America, and the creation, by royal authority, of a titled nobility made democratic states impossible.

This book aims to present an account of the second, or middle, period of the Spanish rule in South America, wich is marked by the organisation and development of political societies dependent on Spain, and lies between 1550 and 1730. It treats of the beginnings of European civilisation in widely separated regions of South America, and sets forth some of the characteristic events associated with the slow development of colonial communities.