Spanish vs. British Empires: Colonial Laws and Economic Legacies

Laws of Burgos and Mestizaje: Two Empires, Two Legacies

An empire that legislated to protect the conquered sounds like a textbook phrase, but it has concrete documentary basis: the Laws of Burgos of 1512 prohibited enslaving Amerindians and granted them legal parity with Spaniards. The nuance appears when moving from law to reality. The encomienda continued functioning until 1720 —in Yucatán, until 1787— and thousands of enslaved Africans entered through Caribbean ports, unprotected by those laws.

What the Laws of Burgos Prohibited and What They Excluded

The 1512 text, promoted after Dominican sermons in Hispaniola, suppressed the encomienda and banned mistreatment of Indians. Administrative reality was much slower than paper. The encomienda was not abolished until 1720, except in Yucatán, which lasted until 1787. The repartimiento, mandatory labor somewhat less oppressive, declined in the early 17th century without disappearing entirely. And the mita —Monday to Saturday, dawn to dusk, with one hour rest at noon and minimum wage— caused massive mortality among the indigenous population.

The paradox that confuses both sides: if there were millions of Indians to exploit, why import so many Africans? The explanation offered is twofold: Africans were considered merchandise and, above all, replaced indigenous labor dying in mines and plantations at an unsustainable rate. An uncomfortable fact for the kinder narrative.

Colonial Universities: 1595 in Manila vs. 1850 in Australia

The date comparison is the strongest argument on the Hispanic side. Spain replicated its urban model in America: neighborhoods, universities, churches, hospitals, institutional buildings. It built more than 20 universities in America and 2 in Asia, the first in the Philippines in 1595 and the second in 1611. Lima, Havana, Cusco, Santo Domingo, or Cartagena were cities comparable to major European ones, and many had universities before second-tier European cities. In Australia, none were founded until 1850.

The complete breakdown of these foundations, with years and locations, shows gaps of more than two centuries compared to British domains, where for a long time the declared goal was language and territorial organization. The obvious objection: a university does not measure peasant welfare.

Why Did Some Independent Countries Prosper and Others Not?

There is a contrast no one disputes. Argentina was a rich nation between the late 19th century and the rise of Peronism, and Venezuela once had per capita income higher than Switzerland's. Today Chile presents the best indicators in the region. The most repeated interpretation attributes these fluctuations to internal politics —economic freedom versus collectivist projects— and not to the empire that administered the territory three centuries earlier.

The problem with this reasoning is that it also fits the other side. Jamaica became independent in the 20th century and did not take off. And majority Anglo-Saxon territories —Canada, Australia, New Zealand— are among the most prosperous on the planet. Those who support this thesis point out that British colonies maintained close ties with the metropolis, while Hispanic American ones fell into the hands of local elites or third powers.

It is worth setting a limit. Part of the conversation drifts toward demographic and cultural factors, a deterministic ground that data do not support and this analysis does not share. That a country concentrates indigenous majorities does not explain its backwardness; it explains, at most, that its property structure and taxation were born differently.

Tasmania, Bengal, and the Extractive Model

On the British side, the cited examples are of another severity. The Black War in Tasmania ended, according to the most repeated version, with the island's aboriginal population. During World War II, the Bengal famine left more than a million dead. And Australian Aboriginals were employed in railway construction well into the 20th century.

The defended thesis is that the British Empire operated as an extractive enterprise: it took resources, ordered borders, and left. Its legacy, in that reading, remains in language and territorial organization. Against it there is an evident counterargument: the Law and institutions left by the British in their settler colonies explain much of their subsequent success.

The Mediterranean and the Wall that Stopped the Ottoman Empire

The other front of the comparison is military. It is argued that the Ottoman Empire intended to enter Italy and convert the Vatican into a mosque, and that it took a city in Puglia where it forced conversion to Sarracin and executed 800 people who refused. The Spanish defense of Central and Western Europe would have been, in that reading, the precondition for the Italian Renaissance.

However, chronologies do not match. Part of the material considers the Ottoman threat closed after 1575; another asserts that a century later the empire was unstoppable and only the cavalry charge of John III Sobieski at Kahlenberg prevented greater evils. Two incompatible narratives about the same century.

What is measured: the law or its compliance, the city or the countryside, the viceroyalty or the metropolis? If the criterion is the legal document, the Spanish advantage is hard to dispute: no other conquering power legislated to protect the conquered. If the criterion is the economic result two centuries later, the distance shrinks considerably. It is predictable that the dispute will not close in either trench, because each side will continue choosing the metric that gives them reason.