The
British North American colonists had many advantages over their neighbors to
the south in Latin America, helping them to be better prepared for independence. The populations of the two regions had
drastically different racial composition.
The North American colonies lacked racial diversity, while Latin America
had drastic diversity, which caused there to be a greater number of issues for
Latin America. The Latin American
colonies faced more problems than the British North American colonies during
and after the revolutions due to more problems with racial tensions and
violence as well as labor systems and economics based on slavery.
In
the Latin American colonies, much of the revolting was due to racial tensions
and violence. In British North America;
however, the colonies just wanted freedom from England and “slavery or
racial questions were ever at issue between Britain and America at the time of
the Revolution”1. In
the Latin American colonies, not only did white people at the top of the social
classes want freedom from their mother countries in Europe, but blacks wanted
freedom from slavery. The blacks “saw the
whites fighting among themselves” and of course were “inspired” to fight for
their freedom as well1. In
the North American colonies, blacks did not revolt because they made up such a
small percent of the population, but in the Latin American colonies, the blacks
who were enslaved “outnumbered the whites ten to one”1.
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As seen in the graphs, the enslaved
population made up the majority of the population in the Latin American
colonies, while in the Northeast British colonies, enslaved blacks were a very
small minority. Not only did the
enslaved blacks fight for freedom from slavery, but they acted out very
violently which caused problems in the colonies. The angry blacks tried “’to vex the
whites, humiliate them whenever the circumstances permit, by outbursts, thefts,
or insults that aren’t punished’” in the Latin American colonies1. The enslaved blacks in the British colonies had
very little chance to break from slavery by revolting since there were very few
enslaved black people in the colonies.
Racial tensions and violence in Latin America was a major problem, while
the British colonies did not face these issues.
The British
colonies were better prepared than the Latin American colonies because they
were not as reliant on slave labor and had overall better labor systems and
economics. In addition to the racial tensions between blacks and whites, once
the enslaved blacks gained freedom in Latin America, many slaves did not want
to work. Most slaves did not want to
return to working on plantations or doing any work they had done before or
associated with slavery. Many former
slaves “refuse[d]
to go to it now under pretext of freedom” and they “spend [spent] their time in
wandering about”2. This was a
major problem since the majority of the population had been slaves and had been
the source of the success of their economy.
In the British colonies, since slave
labor was not as heavily depended upon and many whites had jobs besides being
owners of plantations, there was still plenty of labor to drive the economy
after the revolution. The British
colonies were “a colony of farmers, a predominantly white society of European
immigrant” and “blacks were a small minority within a predominantly white and
fundamentally English culture”2.
There was also approximately twice as many
whites than slaves in the British colonies from 1790-1860, also showing they
were not as dependent on slave labor.
Haiti, one of the Latin American colonies was suffering so much from the
loss of slave labor that they needed to order “‘All field-labourers, men and women, now in a state of
idleness, living in towns, villages, and on other plantations than those to
which they belong’” to “‘to
return immediately to their respective plantations…’”2. They were so desperate for labor they had to
create a forced-labor program. Latin
America suffered from a loss of labor, while the British colonies’ labor system
hardly changed at all after the revolution.
The
North American colonies who were not trying to fix as many problems and achieve
as many ideals had more success after they gained freedom than the Latin
American colonies. The North American
colonies were only trying to fix political problems where as the Latin American
colonies were trying to also fix social problems. Specifically, problems due to racial tensions
and violence and labor systems and economics caused the Latin American colonies
to be disadvantaged and not as successful as the British North American
colonies.
Sources:
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