Discuss the differences in colonial management practiced by the European states in the Americas. How did the different reasons for colonization lead to different levels of governmental presence in the colonies, and how did this governmental presence affect the social structure?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Students should discuss the viceroy system used by the Spanish, which was based on government appointments from Spain until it grew more economically feasible to use local nobility of Spanish descent. The creation of a social hierarchy within the Spanish colonies by descendants of conquistadors and encomendaros was an opportunity for social advancement for the Spanish explorers, who were not hereditary nobles in Spain. The viceroys and hidalgos in New Spain became powerful because the great distance from Spain meant they could not be controlled too closely. Indigenous nobility attempted to maintain some degree of social status by intermarrying or making deals with the Spanish. Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese king started by appointing explorers and not promoting rule from Portugal; instead he created twelve hereditary captaincies, and only nearly two hundred years later appointed a viceroy, in imitation of the Spanish system. The English, because they initially colonized as a business venture, did not establish a system of government initially but left control in the hands of the London Company, with settlers not colonists in the name of the Crown but employees of the charter company. Later, when religious groups began to colonize in the New England and mid-Atlantic regions, the colonists became citizens under the rule of British law. Local government varied more than it did in Spain and Portugal. Significantly, it also included a form of democracy, the town council.