It is understandable why countries in which European empires ruled over the native populations without eradicating them, largely deconstructing their previous modes of government and diverting their resources away from them for hundreds of years (i.e. India and many African countries) often face such difficult issues today with poverty and corruption.
However, in countries where European empires and their settlers largely wiped out the native populations (mostly in the New World), leaving people mostly of European heritage and culture to govern themselves in a European manner, it has struck me that the most successful examples are those in the Anglosphere. Does this stem from a particular way in which the British governed their colonies, or are there other reasons?
This is a big question; any answer that is offered shorter than a two hundred page book is going to be simplistic at best. I’ll be doing a huge amount of simplifying to even put forth a few thoughts. That’s not to say it is a bad question; it’s that the more closely we examine the comparison, the more we really dig into it, the less useful the generalization appears.
First, defining success is somewhat problematic. It’s easy to throw aside Latin America in generalizations about not being as advanced as a select group of former British colonies, but we can also point to lots of successes depending on the definition of success. Jose Moya wrote a beautiful essay about Latin America’s complexity in The Oxford Handbook of Latin American History, which I will summarize here. Peru and Mexico’s mining industries represented some of the most industrialized locations in the world during the 1600’s. The Caribbean Islands were some of the wealthiest and most prized colonies during much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Argentina and Uruguay, by 1900, had GDPs and GDPs per capita on par with France and other European nations and were both among the top ten richest countries in the world. Additionally, independence of Spanish colonies in 1810 represented the cutting edge of democracy, closely following the first modern democratic experiments in the United States, Haiti, and France. Uruguay and Chile have some of the longest democratic traditions in the entire world (excluding the disastrous dictatorships of the Cold War). Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Cuba were among the most urbanized countries in the world before the Great Depression. The links that /u/Searocksandtrees posted include other data that demonstrate how complicated defining success is. When looked at from this perspective, there is really more going on than a simplistic view of colonization might sweep under the rug.
When it comes to colonial models, people often point to the fact that British colonies were settler agricultural colonies and most Spanish colonies were mining colonies that relied on the exploitation of labor. But remember that the colonies of Mexico and Peru were already a century old when the first British colonies in North America were founded. These colonies catapulted Spain to power for three hundred years, but ultimately, they were designed to be tied at a level of subservience to their European metropolises. This model wasn’t bad or inferior; it was Europe’s state of the art economic practice in the 1500s. By the 1700s though, the Spanish crown knew that they had to make changes to this model. Britain and France threatened Spanish hegemony in the New World. The crown implemented a series of changes through the Bourbon Reforms that were supposed to change the path of economic development to be more closely aligned with economic theories of the day. Spain opened up more free trade, reorganized the colonies, and restructured the bureaucracy. We’ll never know if these policies would have made a difference for economic development of the colonies because Napoleon invaded Spain and the whole system came crashing down. The empire was replaced by nations that struggled to coalesce into stable nation-states. Economically, these nations developed local industries, but never developed an industrialized export economy. The new countries were extremely important to the world economy by exporting massive amounts of raw materials, but these were susceptible to periods of boom and bust. For example, Uruguay and Argentina developed huge agroexport economies, but this model did not rebound from the Great Depression particularly well.
When I read your explanation of the question, I notice that you acknowledge more directly that of the settler colonies specifically, the British ones (Canada, USA, Australia [excluding Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, and other Caribbean colonies]) tended to be more successful than Iberian colonies (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Colombia). I think the roots of the developmental differences lie more in the economic policies and political stability of the new countries rather than their colonial experience. For instance, the dominant strain of positivism that took hold during the 19th century emphasized comparative advantage, order, and progress (the motto that is enshrined on Brazil’s flag). Comparative advantage encouraged developing countries to focus only on what they did well, thereby neglecting the diversification of their economy. Likewise, Argentina’s economy during the 1880s to 1930s was one of the largest in the world. It was driven by agroexports, but after the Great Depression, this sector faced more competition from abroad and changing priorities at home. British Commonwealth countries benefited from some protections, while Argentina had to fend for itself. Argentina’s economic problems were compounded by the fact that their leaders sought a “third path” through the Cold War, which never worked very well. Juan Perón took power, who in turn was expelled by the military, who eventually was replaced by democratic leaders culminating with Carlos Menem, the “Washington Consensus,” and neoliberalism, which in turn brings us up against the twenty year rule. These periods all bleed together, and their social and institutional moves depended on those inherited from its predecessors. With each successive change, new institutions were established that focused on distinct social groups, which created a “stop and go” environment for industrialization. Furthermore, the oscillation between civilian and military rule hindered stability, and the upper and middle classes often relied on the military to get the country out of economic and social impasses.
I can’t speak for British colonial policies since that is out of my area, but when we only look at Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, maybe a better question would be what was it about those countries that allowed them to stumble on the economic policies that were best suited for twentieth century development? Very few other former colonies anywhere in the world, be they British, French, Portuguese, or French, managed to find that balance. In my view, Canada, the US, and Australia are the exceptions in terms of stability, economic development, and democratic traditions. Many other colonies did not benefit from British rule whatsoever. In reality, every colony faced both colonial legacies and complex social, political, economic, and geographic challenges. Respectfully, I believe that an intimate study of the latter is a more nuanced and fair way to examine these countries’ diverse experiences navigating a multitude of historical and modern challenges.
Hello, I'm not sure if it is against the rules, but I would like to point out that your generalisation is not always true. New Zealand is a great example of British not eradicating natives, and still being a prosperous country today.
hi! you might be interested in a few earlier posts
I'm not an expert like most people on this sub, but I'll give it a shot as I did a little research previously myself. Generally speaking, there are two reasons or theories as to why the british colonies ended up being more prosperous in the long term compared to the south americas.
The first one, is natural resources. Colonial North America in comparison to the south, has far less natural resources, and was less suitable for the mass mining operations that the territories in south america often went through, this is generally called the Resource curse , and led to north American colonies generally speaking being settled with a focus on agricultural elements and being able to sustain themselves. In comparison, the resource rich south america, wasn't as suitable for agricultural development due to the large amount of rainforest/jungle terrain in the region, as well as the mountains. This amount of natural resources also relates to the second reason as to why the north was far more prosperous. The Spanish and Portugese would often use the local natives in their numerous mines, up until the development of triangle trade and the encomienda system (The former was Slaves from Africa going to work in the Americas, then the goods get sent back to europe, The latter was outlawing the previous exploitation of natives, however they had to work under the owner of the land they worked on) and these natives were not really suited to the large amount of heavy labour they would be engaged in and ended up dying out quite quickly.
The Spanish/Porto also had more interest in making a quick amount of money, the north americas generally speaking did not produce as much sugar, cocoa or precious metals which aside from spices pretty much dominated the markets of the time period. This meant in short, that north america never had to go through the same levels of exploitation that the south did, due to its lack of natural resources. The north was focused on settling, the south on extraction
Apologies for the lack of sources, I don't precisely remember them but if you want some I can attempt to dig them up.
It's worth noting that, in America's case, some have made the argument that the River system is what pushed the US ahead of others in terms of industrial development. Other major geographic features like prolific sheltered deepwater ports and the Great Lakes were also enablers.
Same article noted that south of the Rio Grande, the native kingdoms tended to be densely populated and so it wouldn't be quite accurate to say that the Iberians "largely eradicated" the continental Native Americans.