What were the reasons why the lands colonized by England (USA, Canada, Australia) has resulted with the modern populace being of predominantly European-descent, while lands colonized by Spain (most of South America) has the modern population of mixture of European and indigenous peoples?

by Chicken-Inspector

First of all, I wanted to preface that I k ow this could very easily dwell into emotionally charged, sensitive territory. I’m asking out of pure curiosity and have no bad motivations behind this questions.

I can’t remember where I read it, but I recall reading something about Spain’s policy of treating indigenous peoples of South America was much different that England’s. Such as the Spanish were more open to integration of Europeans and Indigenous peoples as opposed to Englands more…slash-and-burn practices…. That could be complete bonk for all I know. But two European super powers (of the time) colonized much of the americas with very different results. The majority of USA and Canada’s (anglophone countries, except Quebec, sorry!) majority population are white skinned and with ancestry from Europe while the countries from Mexico south have people with darker skin and mixed ancestry of Europe and Indigenous peoples.

What were the ideologies and events that led to our modern day populations being who they are? Were Spanish more open to other cultures and English more closed off to all but their own?

Thanks in advance!

I posted an answer to a similar question a few months ago. It's important to remember what initally motivated the age of exploration - it was not population pressure, but rather economic desperation. It was initially a quest to reconnect with the markets in Asia. Framing it this way is important, as it helps us understand that the Spanish colonization of the Americas was economically motivated, first and foremost.

So in the early 1500s, in a race against the Portuguese to claim the lands and natives of the Americas, the Spanish crown put into law a social and economic system that would allow them to quickly and "ethically" incorporate large amounts of native lands - the Encomienda system. In it, any enterprising young Spaniard with the means could mount an expedition of conquest and become an Encomandero, basically a lord, over the lands and people he conquered. This conquest was intended to be "ethical" as it was to be a harmonious and pious quasi-feudal system, where the natives provided labour to the Spanish in exchange for education and protection.

In truth it was conquest and exploitation of the most brutal kind. Within the Encomienda's legal framework, the conquistadores were motivated to decapitate the societies they encountered and become the new ruling class, which is exactly what happened to the Aztec and Incan Empires. From there, they would treat the natives no better than slaves, at least initially.

The point here is, this is the system that many Latin American societies were founded under, and is the basis for their levels of racial integration. However, this integration did not come without its traumas so it would not be entirely correct to see it favourably in comparison to French and English colonization. The two systems were inhumane in their conquest, but in different ways.

To begin with, the type of economic vassalization the Spanish undertook was just not possible for the English and the French, because the areas they settled did not have the kinds of pre-existing states that could be taken over. Secondly, the challenges the English faced were more demographic, and so their colonization was done in part by certain religious groups looking for freedom from the English crown, see the Catholics in Maryland and the Puritans in Massachusetts.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, birthrate overtook immigration for growth in the English colonies. It is here and onwards into U.S./Canadian history where you see there being increasing conflict with native groups. The strategy was to displace the natives with treaties as much as possible, but similar to the Encomienda, it was not executed in good faith. As the colonial population grew, the colonists could not help but violate the treaties they themselves brought to the natives in the decades previous. The Great Sioux War and the Trail of Tears are better known example of this, but there were many, many other tragedies and conflicts.

So to finish, your notion that Spanish colonization integrated natives compared to the English is true, but it needs a lot of context. On the one hand, there was a certain cross-cultural idealism and high-mindedness the Spanish crown had with Encomienda, but it was a catastrophic failure in that regard. It led to societies that, even centuries later, would have trouble integrating with themselves, divided along class lines that followed the historical race lines.