Empires of the Atlantic World (book reviews)

[Menydh]

Empires of the Atlantic World

Elliott and the Spanish and English Americas

by Sergio Elizalde


The Anglo-Saxons are used to explain the current poverty of the Spanish Americas and the success of North America as the results of a bad Spanish heritage in the south, and of a good English colonisation in the north respectively. This judgement is due to a mixture of an intellectual laziness, Anglo-Saxon narcissism and of prejudices created by the Black Legend.

Sir John Elliott is English, but he is neither lazy nor a narcissist, and he knows that a legend is just that, a legend. Regius Professor Emeritus in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, his most recent book is a comparative, equilibrated and documented study of the Spanish and the British colonisations in America.

Spain started her Conquest 100 years before England. She had the advantages and the disadvantages of the pioneer. Spain served as a model to the British. Spain faced problems as acute as an impossible geography and the integration of huge indigenous populations.

The Spanish Crown was interventionist since the start. "Defying the laws of time and space", it made a conscious and coherent effort to integrate the new territories ("kingdoms, not colonies") within the domains of the Hispanic Monarchy. The indigenous peoples were evangelicized and incorporated in the Civilization and the "Spanish way of life". The compromise of the Crown to assure justice for the natives was clear and continued: "It is not easy to find something similar in the history of other colonial empires". Instead of extermination, there was interethnic mixing. The African slaves enjoyed opportunities to improve their social status and their counterparts in the north could not even dream of the freedom that they enjoyed.

The finding of precious metals increased the interest of the Crown and favoured a fast expansion of the royal bureaucracy. It was that wealth and the easy to handle indigenous labour that, as time passed, broke the pioneer and entrepreneur spirit of the start and it perpetuated a conception of the wealth which was starting to be obsolete, based more in the possesion and the control than in the risk, the innovation and the trade.

England started its time of colonisation "after a century of Protestant Reformation, with a settled Parliament and with new ideas in Europe about the correct ordering of the State and of its economy". The geography of its thirteen colonies was benign, the rivers could be sailed and the natives were not as many. The absence of silver and native labour had two effects: on the one hand it allowed the English Crown, focused in its effort to subjugate Ireland, to adopt a "low profile"; on the other hand, "it forced the new settlers to focus on development more than on exploitation [...] reinforcing the value of self-sufficiency, hard work and initiative".

The Hispanic efforts "to raise" the indigenous peoples to the levels of the European Civilization were not important to the British. Any effort to convert them to the Christian faith was soon abandoned. The Anglican Church did not take roots. In the same way as they did with the Irish, the Indians were excluded and pushed to the limits of the territory. That gave the settlers more freedom of manouvre "more freedom of manoeuvre to make reality conform to the constructs of their imagination". Besides, the "imperial weakness" got them used to govern themselves and "on the long terms this was a source of fortitude for these societies".

When England wanted to establish a coherent framework to exploit the resources in its colonies, it was already too late. As Adam Smith observed, in reality the empire in America "had existed only in their imagination".

Maybe Elliott, a man of his time, exaggerates the importance of the profit motive in the American adventure. Neither does he analyze, consciously so, the events of Canada. Maybe he forgets, unwillingly so, the role of the Freemasonry in the wars for independence. But he never stops reminding of the pernicious effects of the rich resources in the aim of the characters, nor the infurating Spanish bureaucracy, "the grave of so many good intentions". Nor does he forget the powerful Hispanic pioneering spirit and the trust that Spain had in her ability to transmit to these peoples the benefits of her religion and her civilization. Qualities which are so valuable to confront the globalisation of that time just as the globalisation of today.

[original source]

[Celtica]

I bought the book a few months ago. I have been reading it off and on. Extremely informative and well written. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking an in depth analysis of British & Spanish Colonial America.

[Menydh]

I'll probably buy it. I'd like to read it and also to compare it with Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Empire (a much different approach to J.H. Elliott's comparative work). To say the least, I find it amazing how these Anglo-Saxon Hispanist Historians of the new batch are slowly coming to agree with the Hispanic Historians of all times, after all the lies and swindles spread about Spain by the Anglo-Dutch world.

[Celtica]

Yeah, the effects of the "Black Legend" definitely didn't do the Spanish any favors. So many misconceptions and biases found their way into the history books. I applaud J.H. Elliott for all the hard work he put into this book. He makes many valid comparisons and does an exceptional job in explaining how the many different geographic/demographic circumstances and indigenous cultural differences shaped a great deal of the policy put forth by the English and Spanish during their reign. Really good reading.

[Strengthandhonour]

I find it quite sad that a lot of white nationalists claim that the British imperial system was superior to the Spanish. When I questioned why they say so. "Well it's very clear, just look at South America. A racial mess with financial problems"
Usually the conversation ended after that with me being extremely dissapointed at the lack of information that the individual has regarding the topic.

[Celtica]

The simplest explanations tend to appease most people, no matter how complicated the subject in question may be. The British Colonies, for starters, were much smaller (mainly being stretched along the Eastern Seaboard) than that of the ambitious Spaniards. There was a very small, nomadic native population that were easy to remain socially segregated from. It was not even until Post Revolutionary times that Anglo-America took the initiative and explored/acquired most of this continent; which, at the time, had already been explored and/or colonized by the French and Spanish.

Taking those few facts into consideration, can we really say, with any degree of certainty, that the British Empire and all of Its policies in this country were better than that of the Spanish, who were faced with a much larger territory and substantially larger, more diverse, indigenous population? I don't think so. It was really Independent United States of America that built this country up to what these individuals admire, not the British Crown.

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Celtica

The simplest explanations tend to appease most people, no matter how complicated the subject in question may be. The British Colonies, for starters, were much smaller (mainly being stretched along the Eastern Seaboard) than that of the ambitious Spaniards. There was a very small, nomadic native population that were easy to remain socially segregated from. It was not even until Post Revolutionary times that Anglo-America took the initiative and explored/acquired most of this continent; which, at the time, had already been explored and/or colonized by the French and Spanish.

You forgot about New France and the Maritimes as well as Rupert's Land as well as the colonies in the Central and Southern Americas.. It was the British and the French who explored Canada-- and a British man, as I recall who first went on and over the Rockies and mapped them, not the Spanish or the French. The French got into Ontario and maybe a little bit into Manitoba.

It was really Independent United States of America that built this country up to what these individuals admire, not the British Crown.

Typical American sentiment.

America wouldn't exist without the British Crown in the first place...

[Strengthandhonour]

I think the typical American sentiment is right regarding that matter. The British didn't care enough about the colonials in America to represent them even in congress. Therefore came the line "taxation without representation"
The policy of the British was not a good one imo. The entire concept of everything that benefits the empire and hurts others ended up hiting them in the ass. The Americans fought it smart, managing to drag the war long enough in order to get the support from foreign powers.
What was America as a British colony? Nothing other than a source to pay off debt for wars against the French.

[Celtica]

Originally Posted by Susi

You forgot about New France and the Maritimes as well as Rupert's Land as well as the colonies in the Central and Southern Americas.. It was the British and the French who explored Canada-- and a British man, as I recall who first went on and over the Rockies and mapped them, not the Spanish or the French. The French got into Ontario and maybe a little bit into Manitoba.

I clearly named the French as a primary group in the exploration and colonization of North America. Thus, as I recall, New France and Maritimes were originally explored and colonized by the French, not the British. The British territories in Latin America were acquired through warfare against the Spanish & Portuguese (some being a result of illegal acts of piracy quietly sanctioned and encouraged by the British Crown), not through exploration and conquest.

Originally Posted by Susi

Typical American sentiment.

America wouldn't exist without the British Crown in the first place...

You mean The United States of America obviously would not exist had there never been a British presence; which I'm sure, to some on here, wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. However, I am grateful for their contributions to this country. My comments were directed at the arbitrary claims of the "superiority of the British Empire" over that of the Spanish, flaunted by many British and Americans alike.

[Menydh]

By the way, not only about half of modern US were first explored by the Spanish long before other even arrived, but also a part of Canada's coast was first explored by Spanish navigators.

Early Coastal Explorers

In all, what modern historians are coming to agree with, is not as much how the Spanish Empire declined or when, but the amazing that it was that Spain even managed to have such a vast empire and further explore more lands.

There are several factors that people often ignore:

• The orography of much of what was explored and most of what was conquered by Spain was extremely hostile, unlike that of North America (a part of which was also part of the Spanish Empire, and even more explored by the Spanish). Added to the varied as hostile terrains, there was the new diseases which the Spanish Conquistadors and Exploradors found, and which killed no few of them; the many species of mosquitoes, snakes, spiders and other pests which were unknown to the Europeans and which are legion in those rainforests, rivers, etc.
• The hostility of the terrain also accounted for the attacks from the indigenous peoples. The heavy armours of the Spanish did not help to advance through many areas where firearms were not as much of an advantage as it is gratuitously assumed.
• The Spanish Exploration and Conquest started in the end of the XVth century and went through the XVIth century onwards. British late XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries explorers had better and lighter firearms.
• The ever present demographic problem of Spain. Much of Spain is a central high plateau (La Meseta) where life has always been very harsh as resources are scarce, the climate is hard for growing foods and the terrain no good for big cattle. Much other are sierras which, although less harsh, they are still no fit to keep large populations. As a consequence, the demography in those areas has always been very low since probably Paleolithic times, and subsequently the overall demography of Iberia has been low. Also, Spain had just finished the last chapter of a Reconquista which had taken long centuries and which had been accompanied by repopulation movements from the north to the south, as well as much blood spilled.
  Add to that the Tercios Viejos (the Old Tercios), the elite companies of the Spanish Imperial Army in Europe, which were formed only by Spaniards (the other Tercios were mercenaries), which were constantly fighting in Europe or in the Mediterranean against the Turks and the Berberisc pirates.
  
  To make short a long story, the exploration and the conquest of the Spanish Americas was realized with few men, not with large armies of soldiers or settlers. There was no possibility of putting more men other than emptying the whole of Spain and moving to the Americas.

[Erasmus]

Originally Posted by Celtica

I bought the book a few months ago. I have been reading it off and on. Extremely informative and well written. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking an in depth analysis of British & Spanish Colonial America.

Spanish Colonial America didn't exist, Spain had American Kingdoms not colonies