Race and Class the Social

Race and Class

The social and racial structure that was practiced in the American colonies is seen as being distinct from one another. The North American colonies as opposed to the Spanish and Portuguese ones adopted a means of social organization that was based more on material issues rather than on traditional or cultural backgrounds of the people. Therefore, from a brief analysis, it can be said that the structure of the respective societies differ greatly, especially as a result of the actual colonists that had settled on the land and due to the natural conditions that were offered by the land itself.

Firstly, the colonial system imposed to the North Americans on the one hand, and the South Americans on the other, was influenced to a large extent by the political system present in the country of origin. Thus, the English were the representatives of constitutionalism, based on years of tradition in regulating a balanced political rule. Consequently, the conditions that were exported in the colonies followed the same guiding principles, those of shared political governance, but most importantly the fundamentals of a liberal society; their results were seen in the structure of the social and racial system which in the American colonies was based on the achievements of the individual rather than on his cultural origins and the country he came from. On the other hand, the Spanish and the Portuguese were traditionally the examples of absolutism and of deep rooted royal control. This in turn influenced the approach of the colonists in the newly discovered societies. They imposed their rule upon the indigenous people as a means of powerfully controlling them not just in terms of political governance, but also as a means of cultural domination. The Spanish example in particular is rather relevant, Although Spanish ideology was not racist in the modern sense, it was grounded on the superiority of 'things Spanish', including whiteness, Christian reason, purity of blood, and Hispanization. Deviations from these standards connoted social difference and made non-Spaniards threatening and inferior to Spaniards. Social difference, in turn, was the foundation for the formation of a colonial hierarchy in which Spaniards, blacks, Indians, and mixed race mulattos, and mestizons were assigned distinct yet fundamentally interdependent statuses." (Lewis 46) Thus, in contrast to the British colonists, the Spanish colonial social structure relied more on the cultural background of the individual rather than what his achievements could actually provide.

Secondly, this different approach also led the American society to experience a distinct social evolution. The fact that the British colonists were less reluctant to encourage social mobility offered the new settlers the change to become an important member of the society despite his eventual modest origin. Consequently, the highest level of the social scale was that of the colonial aristocrats, represented by wealthy planters and merchants, the middle class was represented by the land owning farmers, while the hired help made up the lower class. Indeed, there were racial frictions as well, which forced African-Americans to be considered the least important in the society. Nonetheless, despite this hierarchy, the geographical conditions enabled every man to go in search of wealth and thus improve his social conditions.

The Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, although they offered a different social structure for their colonies, they left little mobility between classes. The most important were the landowners, who were most often the conquistadores, which was therefore a rather elite club. Following were the merchants, then the slaves and women. Thus, there was no strong intermediate middle class, which comes to prove the lack of flexibility of the society. Therefore, as opposed to the American society, would promote favoritism rather than those based on personal merits. This is why the Latin American society reached an inferior level of development.