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Did Greed and the Catholic Church destroy an entire Continent?
Sometimes things just pop into the Skeptic's head for reasons even he really doesn't understand, they rattle around in there and if he's lucky he forgets about them but this stuff popped in the other day and for whatever reason he can't get it out of there. He was listening to the radio and he heard a story about Hugo Chavez and suddenly he was wondering how it came to be that two continents, North and South America, so similar in size and discovered by Europeans around the same time, South America was actually first, could develop in such radically different ways. Now the Skeptic, in general, has never given much more than a passing thought to South America except for the fact that he knows Brazil seems to have more than its share of beautiful women but this isn't about that. Anyway, over the last few days this question has taken up residence in his head, it won't go away and it puzzles him. North America, other than Mexico, has been unbelievably successful and relatively peaceful over the last four centuries. Yes, there was a revolutionary war and a civil war, no denying that and yes, hundreds of thousands of Indians were killed but basically North America has been a safe and comfortable place to live, unless you happened to be an Indian, while our southern neighbors, including Mexico, have been and are today the exact opposite. Once again, there are exceptions, some people have become extremely wealthy and live quite nicely but the vast majority of the people there live in extreme poverty and live under very unstable and often cruel governments. It seems to be getting better in many places but it has taken them four hundred years to get to this point and there are still millions of people who live under brutal regimes.
So what's the answer, why are North and South America so different? Well, the first thing the Skeptic thought of was that Spain and Portugal were the main colonizers of South America and Britain and France colonized North America. Spain did claim most of what is now the southwest section of the United States but it was a pretty desolate place and not a lot of people actually lived there other than Native Americans. On the surface that would hardly seem to make any difference, other than the language difference Spain and England couldn't be that different, could they? So how did a group of mostly English farmers and merchants clinging to the east coast of North America came to found the most successful country in the history of the world? Did they have some special insight or knowledge that no one else possessed? And why didn't the same thing happen in the New World to the south? Weren't they also farmers and merchants? Why, when those southern colonies broke away from their mother counties, did they evolve into one hopeless dictatorship after another instead of stable democracies? And even more fascinating, why was it virtually every single country from Mexico to the tip of South America that shared that fate? Not a single one of them managed to form a stable government that lasted any length of time. Seriously, all of the South and Central American countries have had multiple governments, multiple dictators and the occasional short flirtation with democracy. It can't be coincidence, is there something in the air south of the Rio Grande River that precludes people from governing themselves in a responsible manner or is it something else entirely? And there is another question to ponder, one that isn't just an intellectual exercise. With the influx of so many millions of people from those countries into the United States are we soon going to find ourselves living in similar circumstances? It's not an uncommon phenomenon, even inside the United States, people often move from one state to another because of a perceived advantage one state might have over another but once they arrive in their new state they quickly miss something from where they used to live and they work to bring it to their new state and in the process make their new state exactly like the one they left. It's a strange behavior but we all know it happens and we frequently see something similar in people that arrive from foreign countries, they tend to live near their fellow ex-pats, they often don't bother to learn our language and they have a longing for the old country. While all of these behaviors are somewhat understandable they puzzle the Skeptic but he puts it down to human nature, all of us do things that make little sense and we know it but for whatever reason we continue the irrational behavior.
Okay, the Skeptic would like to say right up front that he hasn't definitively solved this puzzle of north versus south, it probably can't be solved, but he does have a few ideas on the subject. Before we get to why the Skeptic thinks this worked out the way it did we should note that whatever caused the difference must have been quite powerful because it clearly made it almost impossible for people to change it for hundreds of years. It's as if something happened over four hundred years ago that sealed their fate and nothing can be done about it.
That being said the first obvious difference is the reason the continents were colonized in the first place, Spain sent armies to South America to conquer the land and look for gold. The English did that too but they also sent businessmen, they might not have thought of themselves exactly that way but that's what they were and others came on their own looking for religious freedom. Think about it, by the 1620s there were people coming to settle down and make a new life here while in South America there were troops, conquistadors, looking for gold and slaughtering the native peoples. In North America there were problems with the native peoples, the Skeptic's own 10th great grandparents were killed by Indians in the late sixteen hundreds, but the scale of the problem was much smaller here, at least in the beginning. In North America the people were here to make a new lives for themselves, they set up businesses and farms, they weren't generally interested in finding gold or killing the natives, they looked to the natives for help and although there were problems it wasn't even close to the scale of the problem in South America. The Skeptic thinks this was a major difference and it might have led to centuries of trouble for South America.
Even before the founding of the United States the people living here were given great freedom to do as they pleased in North America, in fact from the point of view of Great Britain they may have had too much freedom. The stated reason for the American Revolution was taxation without representation, in fact the tax imposed by England was a relatively small one but the people here were so used to life without intervention by the mother country that they staged an armed revolution when they perceived that England was getting too intrusive.
So, what else was different? Well, in addition to the conquistadors, the Spanish also sent Catholic priests, lots of them, to convert the native population that the soldiers didn't massacre. There are ruins of Catholic Churches that date back to the 1500s in many South American countries and the religion that still dominates the continent today is Catholicism and what do we know about the Roman Church? For one thing, we know they aren't very tolerant, that's true today but four hundred years ago they were possibly the most powerful organization on earth and they meant to keep it that way. They dominated continental Europe in a way that is difficult for us to imagine today and not a lot was done without the blessing of Rome and Rome wanted converts in the New World so Spain did as they were told and sent priests. At first glance one might think that was awfully nice of the church to be so concerned with the souls of native peoples but the Skeptic thinks they may have had something else in mind, like the fact that more converts made for more power for the Catholic Church. Just as a side note, think about how it came to be that so many former Nazis came to live in South America after the Second World War, it's a well known fact that Catholic priests aided them in their journey and their settlement. Without the power and influence of the Church it would not have been possible but what interests the Skeptic is why they would want to help Nazis, there's probably a good story there.
So, what do we have so far in South America? Conquistadors and Priests, one to conquer and kill, the other to convert the population in order to control them but it was a much different story up north. In the British colonies, as we know, the population was free to do as they pleased, probably far more free than we are today, and that freedom extended to their religion. There was a state religion in the English colonies, the Anglican Church, but there was also a freedom of religion, you had to pay taxes that supported the Anglican Church but you didn't have to join, even before the founding of the United States, many different denominations dotted the landscape. In the English colonies you could worship where you wanted and you could pretty much do as you wanted, you could farm, you could become a tradesman, you could start a business, all of these things you could do without the interference of the state or the church. While it's true, Protestant religions were a lot more strict in those days than they are now but they didn't have the power, for the most part, to punish you like the Catholic Church could. Protestant churches pretty much operate as independent bodies, with no central authority like a pope they tended to concentrate on preaching their particular brand of Christianity and leaving governing to the government. Yes, in the very early days of the colonies there were witch trials and the civil authorities were closely tied to the church and people were executed but the numbers were small and that period didn't last very long, in the case of the Catholic Church that kind of power lasted hundreds of years.
There's no denying that the Catholic Church was extremely intolerant of other religions and it showed in South America, other religions were virtually nonexistent there. At that time, and still to some degree today the Catholic Church was heavily involved with government and worked with government, the Spanish Crown, to control and convert the population so is it any surprise that there was a lack of diversity of political thought in South America? There could be no consideration of democracy or any other type of government, the government of the South American continent was essentially controlled by the pope, an autocratic ruler with unquestioned authority, for hundreds of years whereas in the British colonies there was a secular government administered, for the most part, by Protestants, who brought a morality to government but not an actual religion, and the difference is night and day. One was an autocracy with a religious leader and the other a government of the people, even before the American Revolution the people were allowed to make local laws without much input from the British monarch.
So, is that the answer? The Skeptic thinks it probably is but he is equally positive not many people would agree with him, after all, it's not nice to blame the pope for bad stuff, but he thinks between the way the Conquistadors brutally conquered the natives and the Catholic Church subjugated them, a chain of events that led to centuries of abuse was set in motion. Does it matter? After all what's done is done and nothing will change that but does it hurt to take an honest look at history? Of course not and the Skeptic thinks there's a lesson in it for us today. If the Skeptic's theory is correct it's more about freedom versus government control, something conservatives worry about today, than it is about whether or not the Catholic Church is responsible for over four hundred years of bad government and human misery in South America. It says something when you think about it, on one side you have the Spanish government and the entire Catholic Church telling people how to live their lives down to the tiniest detail and all they got for doing as they were told was a world filled with trouble and pain that lasted for generations. On the other side people were allowed to take care of themselves and make their own decisions and they built a country like none other on earth and for the most part lived their lives almost untouched by governmental authority.
So why are all the intellectuals of today so bent on centralizing authority, they're supposed to be sort of smart, can't they see that sort of government has never worked? In Europe they've formed the European Union, most every country in the world is now a member of the United Nations, an organization that is doing everything possible to gain more control over its member states, especially the United States, and there are several other unions forming around the world but why? The Skeptic doesn't see anything wrong with the old system where individual countries make their own decisions and deal with other countries through a system of embassies and diplomatic relations. Yes, there were wars and conflicts all over the world back in the days before the United Nations but it's not as if everything is peaceful today, there are still wars everywhere but now we get to listen to the opinions of every little despot and dictator in the world as they rail against us at a forum we provide for them right in the heart of New York.
There is something to the old saying that good fences make good neighbors. Not that the Skeptic wants to put up actual fences around countries but he would like to put and end to this business of moving closer and closer to a central government. The Skeptic likes having dozens of quaint little countries that write their own laws, deal with their own unique problems, celebrate their own holidays and deal with their neighbors on their own without the interference of the United Nations. The United Nations, even the name is a joke because no matter how these phonies in New York try to frame it, they've done nothing but divide nations since the moment they were founded. No amount of talking will ever make some people get along and maybe it's not so important that we do, maybe all we need to do is try and respect each other and stay in our own yards and throw the occasional block party where everyone in the neighborhood comes over, gets drunk and has a good time for a day. People today say that bigger is better, for a business to be considered a success it has to grow and political subdivisions have to get larger but if that is true we're all in deep trouble for obvious reasons. Once a business gets to a certain size it cannot grow anymore, ask Microsoft or General Electric, they are global companies and room for growth is now limited. Once we eliminate all the small countries and merge into one giant world government we will be done, cooked, finished, there will be only one way of doing things, no new ideas, one bureaucracy will rule just like it did for centuries in South America. In the case of South America the bureaucracy was centered in Spain and overseen by the Vatican and life was miserable for everyone except the very wealthy and powerful and if we keep on headed in the direction we're going now the only questions that remain are who will be our 'pope' and where the new bureaucracy will be centered.
What this all comes down to is this consolidation of more and more power in fewer locations isn't moving us forward, quite the contrary, we're going in reverse. America is going from a time when individuals could and did make a difference to a place where individuals will have no say in anything. The world will be ruled by the supposed elites, not governed, just as South America was ruled by a small group of royals and the pope and we'd all better hope that we get nothing but the wisest men and women to fulfill that role but the Skeptic is beyond skeptical that's how it'll work out, do you doubt him? Just look at the presidents we elect and then try not to stay up at night worrying about where this is all going because once we are all under one governmental roof there will be no place to go when things get bad. There will be no United States to ride to the rescue when we get the inevitable Hitler or Stalin and he starts riding roughshod over our rights. No, once we commit to this sort of tomfoolery we will be done. It won't be a nice friendly socialist state like Sweden or Norway, there will be too many different nationalities pretending we are one but eventually the wrong person will get into power and the old prejudices will surface and all pretense will be gone.
So what's the answer, why are North and South America so different? Well, the first thing the Skeptic thought of was that Spain and Portugal were the main colonizers of South America and Britain and France colonized North America. Spain did claim most of what is now the southwest section of the United States but it was a pretty desolate place and not a lot of people actually lived there other than Native Americans. On the surface that would hardly seem to make any difference, other than the language difference Spain and England couldn't be that different, could they? So how did a group of mostly English farmers and merchants clinging to the east coast of North America came to found the most successful country in the history of the world? Did they have some special insight or knowledge that no one else possessed? And why didn't the same thing happen in the New World to the south? Weren't they also farmers and merchants? Why, when those southern colonies broke away from their mother counties, did they evolve into one hopeless dictatorship after another instead of stable democracies? And even more fascinating, why was it virtually every single country from Mexico to the tip of South America that shared that fate? Not a single one of them managed to form a stable government that lasted any length of time. Seriously, all of the South and Central American countries have had multiple governments, multiple dictators and the occasional short flirtation with democracy. It can't be coincidence, is there something in the air south of the Rio Grande River that precludes people from governing themselves in a responsible manner or is it something else entirely? And there is another question to ponder, one that isn't just an intellectual exercise. With the influx of so many millions of people from those countries into the United States are we soon going to find ourselves living in similar circumstances? It's not an uncommon phenomenon, even inside the United States, people often move from one state to another because of a perceived advantage one state might have over another but once they arrive in their new state they quickly miss something from where they used to live and they work to bring it to their new state and in the process make their new state exactly like the one they left. It's a strange behavior but we all know it happens and we frequently see something similar in people that arrive from foreign countries, they tend to live near their fellow ex-pats, they often don't bother to learn our language and they have a longing for the old country. While all of these behaviors are somewhat understandable they puzzle the Skeptic but he puts it down to human nature, all of us do things that make little sense and we know it but for whatever reason we continue the irrational behavior.
Okay, the Skeptic would like to say right up front that he hasn't definitively solved this puzzle of north versus south, it probably can't be solved, but he does have a few ideas on the subject. Before we get to why the Skeptic thinks this worked out the way it did we should note that whatever caused the difference must have been quite powerful because it clearly made it almost impossible for people to change it for hundreds of years. It's as if something happened over four hundred years ago that sealed their fate and nothing can be done about it.
That being said the first obvious difference is the reason the continents were colonized in the first place, Spain sent armies to South America to conquer the land and look for gold. The English did that too but they also sent businessmen, they might not have thought of themselves exactly that way but that's what they were and others came on their own looking for religious freedom. Think about it, by the 1620s there were people coming to settle down and make a new life here while in South America there were troops, conquistadors, looking for gold and slaughtering the native peoples. In North America there were problems with the native peoples, the Skeptic's own 10th great grandparents were killed by Indians in the late sixteen hundreds, but the scale of the problem was much smaller here, at least in the beginning. In North America the people were here to make a new lives for themselves, they set up businesses and farms, they weren't generally interested in finding gold or killing the natives, they looked to the natives for help and although there were problems it wasn't even close to the scale of the problem in South America. The Skeptic thinks this was a major difference and it might have led to centuries of trouble for South America.
Even before the founding of the United States the people living here were given great freedom to do as they pleased in North America, in fact from the point of view of Great Britain they may have had too much freedom. The stated reason for the American Revolution was taxation without representation, in fact the tax imposed by England was a relatively small one but the people here were so used to life without intervention by the mother country that they staged an armed revolution when they perceived that England was getting too intrusive.
So, what else was different? Well, in addition to the conquistadors, the Spanish also sent Catholic priests, lots of them, to convert the native population that the soldiers didn't massacre. There are ruins of Catholic Churches that date back to the 1500s in many South American countries and the religion that still dominates the continent today is Catholicism and what do we know about the Roman Church? For one thing, we know they aren't very tolerant, that's true today but four hundred years ago they were possibly the most powerful organization on earth and they meant to keep it that way. They dominated continental Europe in a way that is difficult for us to imagine today and not a lot was done without the blessing of Rome and Rome wanted converts in the New World so Spain did as they were told and sent priests. At first glance one might think that was awfully nice of the church to be so concerned with the souls of native peoples but the Skeptic thinks they may have had something else in mind, like the fact that more converts made for more power for the Catholic Church. Just as a side note, think about how it came to be that so many former Nazis came to live in South America after the Second World War, it's a well known fact that Catholic priests aided them in their journey and their settlement. Without the power and influence of the Church it would not have been possible but what interests the Skeptic is why they would want to help Nazis, there's probably a good story there.
So, what do we have so far in South America? Conquistadors and Priests, one to conquer and kill, the other to convert the population in order to control them but it was a much different story up north. In the British colonies, as we know, the population was free to do as they pleased, probably far more free than we are today, and that freedom extended to their religion. There was a state religion in the English colonies, the Anglican Church, but there was also a freedom of religion, you had to pay taxes that supported the Anglican Church but you didn't have to join, even before the founding of the United States, many different denominations dotted the landscape. In the English colonies you could worship where you wanted and you could pretty much do as you wanted, you could farm, you could become a tradesman, you could start a business, all of these things you could do without the interference of the state or the church. While it's true, Protestant religions were a lot more strict in those days than they are now but they didn't have the power, for the most part, to punish you like the Catholic Church could. Protestant churches pretty much operate as independent bodies, with no central authority like a pope they tended to concentrate on preaching their particular brand of Christianity and leaving governing to the government. Yes, in the very early days of the colonies there were witch trials and the civil authorities were closely tied to the church and people were executed but the numbers were small and that period didn't last very long, in the case of the Catholic Church that kind of power lasted hundreds of years.
There's no denying that the Catholic Church was extremely intolerant of other religions and it showed in South America, other religions were virtually nonexistent there. At that time, and still to some degree today the Catholic Church was heavily involved with government and worked with government, the Spanish Crown, to control and convert the population so is it any surprise that there was a lack of diversity of political thought in South America? There could be no consideration of democracy or any other type of government, the government of the South American continent was essentially controlled by the pope, an autocratic ruler with unquestioned authority, for hundreds of years whereas in the British colonies there was a secular government administered, for the most part, by Protestants, who brought a morality to government but not an actual religion, and the difference is night and day. One was an autocracy with a religious leader and the other a government of the people, even before the American Revolution the people were allowed to make local laws without much input from the British monarch.
So, is that the answer? The Skeptic thinks it probably is but he is equally positive not many people would agree with him, after all, it's not nice to blame the pope for bad stuff, but he thinks between the way the Conquistadors brutally conquered the natives and the Catholic Church subjugated them, a chain of events that led to centuries of abuse was set in motion. Does it matter? After all what's done is done and nothing will change that but does it hurt to take an honest look at history? Of course not and the Skeptic thinks there's a lesson in it for us today. If the Skeptic's theory is correct it's more about freedom versus government control, something conservatives worry about today, than it is about whether or not the Catholic Church is responsible for over four hundred years of bad government and human misery in South America. It says something when you think about it, on one side you have the Spanish government and the entire Catholic Church telling people how to live their lives down to the tiniest detail and all they got for doing as they were told was a world filled with trouble and pain that lasted for generations. On the other side people were allowed to take care of themselves and make their own decisions and they built a country like none other on earth and for the most part lived their lives almost untouched by governmental authority.
So why are all the intellectuals of today so bent on centralizing authority, they're supposed to be sort of smart, can't they see that sort of government has never worked? In Europe they've formed the European Union, most every country in the world is now a member of the United Nations, an organization that is doing everything possible to gain more control over its member states, especially the United States, and there are several other unions forming around the world but why? The Skeptic doesn't see anything wrong with the old system where individual countries make their own decisions and deal with other countries through a system of embassies and diplomatic relations. Yes, there were wars and conflicts all over the world back in the days before the United Nations but it's not as if everything is peaceful today, there are still wars everywhere but now we get to listen to the opinions of every little despot and dictator in the world as they rail against us at a forum we provide for them right in the heart of New York.
There is something to the old saying that good fences make good neighbors. Not that the Skeptic wants to put up actual fences around countries but he would like to put and end to this business of moving closer and closer to a central government. The Skeptic likes having dozens of quaint little countries that write their own laws, deal with their own unique problems, celebrate their own holidays and deal with their neighbors on their own without the interference of the United Nations. The United Nations, even the name is a joke because no matter how these phonies in New York try to frame it, they've done nothing but divide nations since the moment they were founded. No amount of talking will ever make some people get along and maybe it's not so important that we do, maybe all we need to do is try and respect each other and stay in our own yards and throw the occasional block party where everyone in the neighborhood comes over, gets drunk and has a good time for a day. People today say that bigger is better, for a business to be considered a success it has to grow and political subdivisions have to get larger but if that is true we're all in deep trouble for obvious reasons. Once a business gets to a certain size it cannot grow anymore, ask Microsoft or General Electric, they are global companies and room for growth is now limited. Once we eliminate all the small countries and merge into one giant world government we will be done, cooked, finished, there will be only one way of doing things, no new ideas, one bureaucracy will rule just like it did for centuries in South America. In the case of South America the bureaucracy was centered in Spain and overseen by the Vatican and life was miserable for everyone except the very wealthy and powerful and if we keep on headed in the direction we're going now the only questions that remain are who will be our 'pope' and where the new bureaucracy will be centered.
What this all comes down to is this consolidation of more and more power in fewer locations isn't moving us forward, quite the contrary, we're going in reverse. America is going from a time when individuals could and did make a difference to a place where individuals will have no say in anything. The world will be ruled by the supposed elites, not governed, just as South America was ruled by a small group of royals and the pope and we'd all better hope that we get nothing but the wisest men and women to fulfill that role but the Skeptic is beyond skeptical that's how it'll work out, do you doubt him? Just look at the presidents we elect and then try not to stay up at night worrying about where this is all going because once we are all under one governmental roof there will be no place to go when things get bad. There will be no United States to ride to the rescue when we get the inevitable Hitler or Stalin and he starts riding roughshod over our rights. No, once we commit to this sort of tomfoolery we will be done. It won't be a nice friendly socialist state like Sweden or Norway, there will be too many different nationalities pretending we are one but eventually the wrong person will get into power and the old prejudices will surface and all pretense will be gone.